Chaperone

Only elite institutions provide career development to support researchers in career management. Over 75% of scientists worldwide lack career development, resulting in a direct impact on an important sector of society - R&D - that represents 1.7 trillion USD investment. Furthermore, the United Nations highlighted that capacity in science and technology is key for economic and social development in underdeveloped countries. To solve this, we built Chaperone - the first online marketplace of personalized career development for scientists. To democratize access to career support, science students and professionals can book online 1-to-1 sessions with career consultants (advisors, specialists, coaches). We gathered over 25 experienced career consultants from different countries and have been recognized by Gulbenkian Foundation and Maze-decoding impact as a social impact venture. While proud of what we achieved, we believe Chaperone has the potential to achieve a higher impact at a global scale, eliminating country and institution-specific inequalities.

Only elite institutions provide career development services to support researchers in their career planning and management. More than 75% of scientists worldwide are lacking career development, with a strong and direct impact on one of the most important sectors of society - R&D - that represents 1.7 trillion USD investment globally. Less than 5% of scientists who start their career in academia are able to stay in academia, although the majority have that career goal. This means that most scientists with a PhD (over 10 million) need to re-define their career goals and revamp their skills and interests to find jobs outside universities or research institutes. While facing career uncertainty and lack of empowerment by their institutions, scientists experience a negative impact in their productivity, well-being and employability. In Europe, the lack of equity in the access to career development in science has been recognized by the European Union as a societal problem (European Charter for Researchers). Worldwide, the lack of career development services is even more dramatic in underdeveloped countries, with less mature scientific communities. The United Nations highlighted that capacity in science and technology is a key element in economic and social development of these countries.

Chaperone is the first online marketplace of personalized career development for scientists. This will overcome the expensive and traditional one-size-fits-all model of career development services that is usually provided by elite research institutions. Every scientist has their unique career path and goals, and this can be easily addressed on our platform, where science students and professionals can book online 1-to-1 sessions with career consultants (career advisors, specialists and coaches). We gathered over 25 experienced career consultants from different countries, to provide services to the growing number of scientists worldwide. Besides, by partnering with us, institutions will now be able to provide a broad range of career development services without having to hire a significant number of career consultants or organize expensive physical training events. Our platform has a clean, modern and user-friendly design, allowing consultants and scientists to have 1-to-1 sessions from the comfort of their homes or offices, democratizing access to career support and reducing individual carbon footprint by reducing traveling to and from career development workshops or training events. With our solutions, we will help pave the way to a world where every scientist can have access to the career support he/she needs.

Our target population is the growing number of 10 million science professionals and even greater number of science students worldwide. The level of satisfaction and productivity of these professionals has a direct impact on R&D - that represents 1.7 trillion USD investment globally. To understand their needs, we have carried out an international survey and found that 75% of scientists believe that a career in science is uncertain and that traditional academic training is not enough to secure a job in science. Chaperone was built by scientists, with scientists and for scientists. Pedro and Joana, co-founders of Chaperone have worked in 8 different countries and have seen the same issues over and over again. Through Chaperone, we are engaging with scientists as an essential part of our platform includes the users’ interviews, session ratings and feedback. Here, scientists can let us know about their satisfaction and the impact this had on their productivity, well-being and employability. Our current user average rating is 4.9 out of 5 stars, which makes us believe we created a high-quality product that is having a positive and life-changing impact on scientists’ careers and scientific organizations talent management strategies.

Chaperone’s mission is clearly aligned with the challenge of equipping young professionals with durable skills needed to stay apace with the changing job market. Current solutions for career development are only accessible to a minority of scientists at elite institutions, further enhancing barriers faced by the vast majority of scientists from institutions with less resources. We have been recognized by Gulbenkian Foundation and Maze-decoding impact as a social impact venture. While proud of what we achieved so far, we believe Chaperone has the potential to achieve a much higher impact at a global scale,  eliminating country and institution specific inequalities.

The current options for scientists are (1) career development offices at top universities & research institutions; (2) freelance consultants that operate at an individual capacity and travel a lot to deliver group non-personalised trainings; and (3) career consultancy firms that mostly provide group trainings at different institutions for a very high fee. Our most direct competitors are the off-line career consultancy firms such as: HFP Consulting, Oxentia or Vitae.

We developed the first online marketplace of personalised career support for scientists, a digital and modern solution to a problem that is negatively impacting science worldwide. Chaperone is hassle-free and accessible from anywhere in the world. For the first time, scientists from any institution in the world are able to pick the career consultant they want, when they want and on the topic they need. Institutions are able to provide a broad range of career development services without having to hire a significant number of career consultants.

We are the first online marketplace for personalized career development in science. We built an online platform where career consultants (currently only invited by us) to register and design their profile with fields such as topics they give sessions on, their short bio, languages they speak, price per hour, and agenda availability. The same platform allows science students to register, browse the career consultants profiles, schedule and pay for online 1-to-1 sessions. Our platform allows price to be converted in different currencies, timezones from scientists and consultants to be defined and programmed in bookings, payments to be made through different options (credit card, paypal). Other tech based functionalities included email notifications of the bookings, ratings of the sessions. Through our platform, a scientist with internet access can confidently and easily book career development sessions with a career consultant at a distance of a few clicks.

Our online platform is already available at www.chaperone.online. Through it scientists from different countries in the world already browsed, scheduled, paid and performed sessions with experienced international career consultants. Our current average user rating is 4.9 out of 5. We have collected great testimonials such as “The consultant was very detailed in his explanations and showed a high-level of expertise as a scientific career consultant. I would definitely recommend Chaperone to upgrade your scientific career.” We have signed partnerships with student and professionals associations, and already already have institutional clients (B2B).

In an international survey conducted by us, 2 out of 3 scientists mentioned they would like to have access to career development consultants. The lack of these services and career instability have been mentioned in different international studies as the main causes for the high prevalence for mental health problems among academics (~40% suffer from depression, ~70% suffer for prolonged high levels of anxiety) and this impacts their productivity and employability.  Scientists who experienced our services mentioned they felt more empowered regarding their career management and revealed very positive changes in their well-being, productivity and we´ve also already helped them make job transitions more effectively. Our vision in a short-medium term is to expand this more regional, small-scale impact, to more significant organizational changes. We expect scientific institutions to make higher commitments towards supporting their staff knowing that this will improve their well-being and employability but also their productivity, therefore improving institutional outcomes, work culture and reputation. In the long-term we expect that people who benefited from our services become better supervisors and mentors, creating a better science culture and increasing international collaboration. We also expect changes to be implemented in policies related to science education and training, namely the quality of institutional services of career development is included in major evaluation for funding of these institutions. As scientists become productive and are less exposed to underemployment, we will see an impact on scientific progress and economic growth, that contributes to healthy societies with more capacity to respond to many world challenges that rely on science-based solutions.

Current Number of registered users in the platform: 72

Number of registered users in one year: 1000

Number of registered users in five years: 50000

Our goal is to become the global market leader for career development in science, transforming the way talent is managed in science and be at the forefront of eliminating inequalities in the access to good jobs and successful careers. In the next 12 months we will collect information on the income generated from the B2C market; the income generated from the B2B market; the cost of sales; how many returning customers we have; what's the average number of sessions each consultant holds per month; share of customers who recommend our platform; share of customers who feel more empowered in their careers by benefiting from our services; share of consultant dropouts. Collecting this information will be fundamental to assess the potential, impact and sustainability of our business so that in five years we can become leaders in career development support for scientists around the globe.

Our main current challenge is to attract capital to grow faster - hire talented team members, upgrade our platform, develop new products, invest in marketing and sales campaigns. Limited financial commitment of scientific institutions to career development of their staff and some reluctance to adopt digital solutions as opposed to traditional ones based on physical group training, represents a current cultural limitation. In five years, our main challenge will be to attract and manage a talented team that allows us to remain a competitive, innovative and high-quality solution for career development services in science, and to explore other professional areas that we might expand our services.

To attract capital to grow faster: we are applying to different acceleration programs, awards and grants. If not successful in the first rounds of applications, we will gather as much feedback as possible to improve future applications. In addition, we are discussing with our advisory board the best ways to finance our growth, including equity investment. We were already approached by interested investors (business angels and VCs) and we agreed to be on an open-conversation during the first 6 months of our launching year. We are also designing a strategy to attract investment from philanthropists that are interested in social impact projects like ours. 

To overcome institutional leadership reluctance to move to adopt digital solutions: currently we are using high-quality educational content to educate on the advantages but it will be very important to have data from our impact studies to show the value of our services. Also, a first round of prestigious institutions as clients will improve the trustiness in our services. As a consequence of the COVID-19 crisis, this barrier actually is becoming less significant and many more institutions are becoming more open to digital alternatives to many of its services.

To attract and manage a talented team and to explore other professional areas other than science: we must design a very good policy of recruiting and onboarding of new team members, be competitive in terms of salary and have a high organizational culture that stimulates high creativity and productivity.

5 part-time

Joana and Pedro (co-founders) have more than 15 years of experience in science. Combined, they worked in eight countries and have a deep understanding of the societal problem being addressed. Pedro founded two science professional associations and worked as policy advisor at Health Parliament and external consultant for the area of Innovation at Ministry of Health, Portugal. Joana is Portugal’s business developer of a fast-growing deep tech company, and founder/director of the multi-awarded social enterprise Native Scientist and has been recognised as MIT Innovator Under 35.  They are joined by Catarina Seabra, as business developer, and by advisors for the areas of Business, IT and Communications. Our team is international, multidisciplinary and highly qualified (5/6 people have PhDs).

We operate both at the B2C and B2B levels, with a higher focus on the B2B market on the long-term. In both approaches, the consultants are free to define their price per hour and we charge a 20% commission on each session.

B2C: scientists visit our platform, search, book and pay for their session.

B2B: institutions buy a pack of hours to offer their staff. For each B2B contract, in addition to the 20% commission, we charge an admin fee of 250 to 1000 Euros, depending on the volume of sales.

In addition to the direct sales, we are applying to grants and awards and seeking investments.

According to our business plan we should achieve financial stability in one year and that should mainly come from our sale revenues both at the B2C and B2B levels.

From the beginning we have been experiencing a community based growth of our idea into a more mature project. We love to participate in collaborative initiatives and, even more interesting for us, the ones aiming for social impact. To be part of SOLVE´s community of peers, funders and experts and more will help reach a higher audience, improve our networking  and our business strategy. It will also improve our reputation at the international levels, improving our chances to get valuable partnerships and clients. The mentorship and advice will help us better design our business model and achieve product-market fit faster. The possibility to win some financial awards is also a big opportunity for us to have access to this seed capital to improve our platform and products.

We are interested in partners that allow us to improve reach markets where our contacts are limited, that have legal and regulatory expertise that allow us to confidently enter more markets and in experts in impact studies design and implementation.

Chaperone is an online marketplace that allows scientists to have online 1-to-1 sessions with experienced career consultants.  A lot of refugee have science degrees but fail to be incorporated in the hosting country science job market due to lack of career support. We would use the prize to develop a specific program tailored to science-educated refugees, that allows them a entry in the science job market within the hosting country. Partnerships will have to be developed with country-specific emigration offices and NGOs.

Access to career support is crucial to navigate the job market upon your graduation. Chaperone is the first online marketplace for career development in science. At Chaperone, science students and early professionals book online 1-to-1 sessions with experienced career consultants. By equipping young professionals with tools to navigate the job market and develop entrepreneurship skills we are empowering them and having an very positive impact in their productivity and employability.

Chaperone is the first online marketplace for career development in
science. At Chaperone, science students and early professionals book
online 1-to-1 sessions with experienced career consultants. Our mission is
aligned with the goal of inclusive economic growth via upskilling of
adult professionals. 

We are based in Portugal and its one of the countries where we had our first clients. We have also been previously recognized by a Gulbenkian sponsored initiative for social impact ventures, called AMPLIFICA.