A pillar of JOPRO
Formation
JOPRO's formation work is about developing researchers and practitioners who can do meaningful work where the conventional paths are insufficient.
We use "formation" rather than "professional development" because the goal isn't skill acquisition alone. It's judgment, orientation, and the capacity to navigate work that doesn't come with a playbook.
The work this responds to
Much of the most important research and practice today sits at the edges of established fields, or between them entirely. The people doing this work often face a common set of conditions: questions that don't fit neatly inside any one department or funding category, career paths that don't follow conventional trajectories, and a gap between the seriousness of what they're trying to do and the institutional infrastructure available to support it.
These aren't problems of talent or motivation. They're problems of orientation. The methods, networks, and institutional knowledge that sustain conventional research careers are often unavailable to people working at disciplinary boundaries, or building something genuinely new.
JOPRO's formation work exists because we believe the people doing this kind of work deserve more than advice. They deserve structured support, honest mentoring, and a community of others navigating similar terrain.
How formation shows up at JOPRO
Formation at JOPRO has been real and intentional from the start, woven into our research programs and collaborative structures rather than offered as a separate track. This is by design: we believe formation happens best in the context of real work, alongside people doing it.
Mentoring within programs
Every JOPRO program carries a formation dimension. Participants in working groups, cohorts, and research projects are mentored on the intellectual and practical challenges of interdisciplinary work, not just the subject matter at hand.
Open Source Summer Cohort with OREL
The JOPRO + OREL Open Source Summer Cohort is the clearest example of formation in action. Participants aren't just contributing to projects; they're being developed as researchers and practitioners within a structured collaborative environment, alongside the related Google Summer of Code programming housed within OREL.
Working groups as formation environments
Participating in a JOPRO working group is itself a form of formation. Doing research alongside more experienced collaborators, across disciplinary lines, with regular feedback and structured inquiry, builds capacities that no course or credential can replicate.
Ad-hoc mentoring and advising
JOPRO's leadership and network have provided ongoing, informal mentoring to researchers, practitioners, and early-career professionals navigating questions about their work, their direction, and how to build something meaningful in a fragmented institutional landscape.
What's ahead
The formation work described above has been embedded in JOPRO's programs since the beginning. We're now building toward something more explicit.
JOPRO is developing a dedicated formation program that draws on our experience mentoring within existing programs and working groups. The aim is a structured offering for researchers and practitioners at early or transitional stages of their work, focused on the orientation, judgment, and strategic capacity that serious interdisciplinary work requires.
More details will be shared as the program takes shape. If formation is something you're interested in, we'd like to hear from you.
Get in touch about formation →Who this is for
JOPRO's formation work is for people doing serious work at the edges of what existing institutions support well. That includes:
- Researchers whose questions sit at disciplinary boundaries or between established fields
- Practitioners crossing into research, or researchers moving toward applied work
- People building projects, organizations, or initiatives that don't yet have institutional homes
- Anyone doing meaningful work and looking for honest mentoring, orientation, and community while doing it
Formation at JOPRO is domain-agnostic but not directionless. We work with people whose questions and commitments connect to the broader aims JOPRO exists to support.