Although supervision for research has very old traditions it is usually difficult for a newly gradate professor to be a good supervisor for Ph.D. students. Exchange in organized forms between senior and new researchers is uncommon and is therefore a fairly unexplored potential for transfer of knowledge. Cooperation for experience and knowledge exchange in research supervision is so far not well studied. With 27 years experience of the university world Wood (2002) means there is a need to unlearn and relearn among the university teachers, since different patterns in the existing culture need to be changed and improved. One example of a new way of cooperating is mentorship programmes, where senior researchers become mentors for new research supervisors. In a mentorship relation two persons, one mentor and one novice, meet for mutual exchange according to the needs of the novice. The novice is normally a less experienced person, who gets support to personal and professional development through the knowledge and experience of the mentor (Kram, 1988; Shea, 1994; McGee, 2001). Therefore, mentorship is a form of transferring symbolic capital that according to Bourdieu (1992) aims to understand the norms and values of an organization, its language and behaviour and also be able to handle it. The assimilation of the symbolic capital takes place through transfer and transform of cultural knowledge and values. This transfer of symbolic capital, that is the meaning of "the reproducing concept" is a form of learning that are of great importance for both professional and personal progress. Whitely and Coetsier (1993) mean that mentorship over all can support a younger person to get involved in the existing culture and language and thereby facilitate the understanding of the work place. This opinion is supported by Freire (1997) who means that mentorship is a democratic process, there the novice and his or her development is in focus. The mentorship is not supposed to be a way for the mentor to achieve his or her personal goals through the novice. Neither is it supposed to bring out and expose the mentor's own ideas or activities. Instead, the idea is that the mentor, with his or her competence and earlier experiences, should be a support for the novice, so that he or she gets confidence and possibility to grow as a person. Therefore, mentorship can be seen as a unique form of education. It is a powerful method for learning and also a dynamic and developing process since the focus is on the individual needs of the novice. By true engagement the novice can develop constructive self insight and enterprise (Lick, 1999; Alfred and Garvey, 2001). Mentorship can also be seen as a potential for development of the mentors since the questions, values and acts of the novices give possibilities to question what they have taken for granted. With the aim to support beginner research supervisors and strengthen their professional role a mentorship project has been carried out at Umea University. The mentors were all senior researchers with long experiences of supervision as well as the university culture. Most of he mentees were newly graduated. Ten mentor/mentee couples have participated in the project. The project was started in Mars 2003 and will be ended in Mars 2004. At the end of the project all participants will evaluate their participation through a questionnaire. The project is seen as a pilot project and the outcomes as well as the experiences from it, will be guiding for if this form of support can facilitate the bridge from being a novice to become a more experienced supervisor. In that way a new project will start in January 2005. In this report, which will be based of the questionnaires and the experiences from the project, three areas will be focused: - Can mentorship be a good form of supporting beginner research supervisor and in that way how? - Are there any difficulties with this kind of project and in that way which? - Which knowledge can be drawn from this from this form of mentorship? When research supervision is both an important, well known and often high lighted task, the results are expected to be important for national as wells as international universities. References Alred, G. & Garvey, B. (2000). Learning to Produce Kowledge - the Contribution of Mentor- ing. Mentoring & Tutoring, 8, (3), 261- 272. Bourdieu; P. (1992). Kultur och kritik. Goteborg: Daidalos. Freire, P. (1997). A response. In P. Freire (Ed), Mentoring the Mentor. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Kram, K. E. (1988). Mentoring at work: Developmental relationships in organizational life. New York: University Press of America. Lick, D. W. (1999). Proactive Comentoring Relationships: Enhancing Effectiveness through Synergy. In C. A. Mullen & D. W. Lick (Eds). New Directions in Mentoring: Creating a Culture of Synergy. London: Falmer Press. Shea, G. F. (1994). Mentoring. Helping employees reach their full potential. American Management Association. New York. McGee, Ch. D. (2001). Calming Fears and Building Confidence: a mentoring process that Works, Mentoring & Tutoring, 9 (3), pp. 202-209. Whitely, W. T. & Coetsier, P. (1993). The relationship of Career Mentoring to Early Career Outcomes. Organization Studies, 14 (3), 419-441. Wood, P. (2002). Teaching and learning in the new millennium. In C. Sugrue and Ch. Day (Eds) Developing teachers and Teaching Practice. London: RoutledgeFalmer.