Building and maintaining research integrity programs requires innovative and effective approaches to strengthening mentoring. Whether responding to NIH or NSF mandates to provide mentor training or partnering with institution-wide mentor training programs, it is essential to offer structured opportunities for faculty to learn about the importance of mentorship and develop mentoring skills for fostering stronger mentoring relationships. RCR professionals should be aware of best practices in effective mentorship and have toolkits that include, among other things, example mentoring agreements to help faculty and mentees set shared goals and expectations for these relationships, and develop a system that tracks and provides meaningful evaluation of how a mentoring program is functioning.

The 2026 APPE RISE^SM Pre-Conference Workshop will focus on mentoring in research. Participants will learn about various successful mentoring program curricula, best practices, and tools for fostering effective mentoring relationships. The program will feature Invited sessions that demonstrate specific approaches to mentor education or share tools that might be helpful in mentor education. This year’s workshop will also feature a roundtable session, in which selected presenters will share information about a mentoring curriculum, tool, or strategy, followed by a discussion with all workshop attendees. The remainder of the workshop will be devoted to breakout sessions, where presenters will work with participants to develop and adapt ideas and tools for use in their institutions. Attendees will leave the workshop with a template of options to use in building and improving their mentoring program.

Call for Proposals

The 2026 APPE RISE^SM Pre-Conference Symposium invites submissions for roundtable presentations on research mentorship.

Presenters will have 10 minutes to share information about a mentoring curriculum, tool, or strategy they have developed. Presentations should demonstrate a new approach to mentorship/mentor education, and can focus on a single topic. Slides may be useful, but should be minimal in number given the time frame.

Submission Instructions

Corresponding authors should submit abstracts up to 300 words and blinded for peer review through the 2026 APPE interface on the Ex Ordo platform.

As part of the submission process, in the topic section, authors should indicate whether they intend to present a curriculum, a tool, a strategy, or other.

Presentations not focused on mentoring are welcome for the main APPE program, which will include research integrity topics.

The APPE RISE^SM Pre-Conference Symposium is a special session of the 35th Annual APPE

International Conference. Accordingly, authors should select the “APPE RISE^SM Pre-Conference” track when submitting proposals. Authors who would like their proposals to be considered for a general session during the APPE in-person conference, or the APPE virtual conference, if not accepted to the APPE RISE^SM Pre-Conference Symposium, will have the chance to indicate this preference during the submission process. Proposals will not be selected for presentation at both the APPE RISE^SM Pre-Conference Symposium and the APPE main conference program.

The deadline for submission on the Ex Ordo platform is October 7, 2025. Authors new to Ex Ordo will need to create a login ID and password. The Ex Ordo platform is user-friendly and allows authors to save a submission and resume progress on it at a later time.

For more information about the APPE RISE^SM Pre-Conference Symposium, contact Kelly Laas at laas@illinoistech.edu. For more information about APPE, the annual conference, and hotel and travel accommodations, visit the APPE conference webpage.