International Cooperation Mentoring Programme

The CEPOL International Cooperation Mentoring Programme aims to strengthen the development, knowledge, skills and expertise of all involved parties contributing to a better work effectiveness and the exchange of best practices. The benefit of the programme goes beyond an individual level and provides overall benefits to the participating individuals and organisations by enhancing skills and increasing knowledge sharing.

It is a learning activity, which provides the opportunity to law enforcement officials to share expertise in a dedicated professional area to promote knowledge transfer and to enhance individual skills of law enforcement officials working in the same domain. From a long-term perspective, this programme will contribute to trust building and to strengthening of cooperation between the EU Member States and the involved partner countries.

The CEPOL International Cooperation Mentoring Programme provides mentoring opportunities within the frame of the following CEPOL International Cooperation projects:

• Counter-Terrorism Information Exchange and Criminal Justice Responses (CT INFLOW)
• EUROMED Police
• EU4 Security Moldova
• Training and Operational Partnership against Organised Crime Project (TOPCOP)
• Western Balkans Partnership against Crime and Terrorism (WB PaCT)

How does it work?

The programme encompasses both mentoring and peer partnership cooperation.

The mentoring cooperation in policing and law enforcement context can be described as:
“The process of ‘shadowing’ a mentee-officer by a mentor-officer, coming from similar background, for an extended period of time with a view to witness the application of new knowledge and skills by the mentee-officer, and assisting him / her in furthering her / his skills, promoting professional growth and, overall, enhancing the effectiveness of the law enforcement agency”  (Manual "Police Monitoring, Mentoring and Advising in Peace Operations", UN Peace Operations).

The mentor acts as a partner and supports the mentee’s development goals as defined by both the partner country law enforcement agency and the mentee.

In the peer partnership cooperation, the participants engage with each other on an equal, reciprocal and mutually beneficial basis without hierarchical roles. The participants are considered peers, contributing their experience, expertise and perspectives. Effective peer partnership cooperation requires peers to work towards objectives jointly defined at the outset of their collaboration.

The matching process will result in a mentor and a mentee or peers (with the same level of experience) being paired. The type of the cooperation is determined during the matching process, taking into account the experiences and preferences of the applicants. After the pairing is concluded and if the parties reciprocally accept each other, they can start planning their common activities.

As a general rule, the duration of all types of cooperation under the International Cooperation Mentoring Programme shall be set at 12 months. Derogations may be granted upon a duly justified request; however, the cooperation period may not be shorter than 6 months nor exceed 15 months.

Types of the Mentoring Programme

1. Dyads: the traditional one-on-one mentoring model. It can create strong relationships between mentors and mentees.
2. Triad mentoring: it involves three persons, and it may be structured in 2 ways:
   - involve one senior staff mentoring two mentees (for example, two staff who are at approximately the same level or stage in their career).
   - involve two mentors who work with one mentee. It works effectively if the two mentors complement each other from a professional point of view.
3. Group mentoring: one or more mentors guide and support a small group of mentees. This approach uses the combined experience of the mentor/s to help several people at once and builds a sense of community.
4. Peer partnership cooperation: Under this category, both participating officials are referred to as peers (instead of mentor and mentee), working at a similar level of experience and expertise. It represents a collaborative partnership rather than a mentoring relationship.

The determination of the most appropriate cooperation modality within the Programme is undertaken jointly by the applicant and the Programme Coordinator of the respective project.

Who can apply?

Mentoring and Peer partnership cooperation will take place both between EU Member States and project partner countries, as well as among the project partner countries themselves. Mentors can be nominated from either EU Member States or project partner countries, while Mentees will only be nominated from project partner countries.

Applicants must fulfil the following criteria:

Mentor:

• Have a reasonable level of English (at least level B2) enabling professional communication with CEPOL and colleagues about enforcing the law on the selected topics;
• Have minimum ten years’ work experience and expertise in the defined thematic area category (except in the case of cybercrime, where at least five years of experience and expertise is essential);
• Participate in the Mentoring course combined with Kick-off meeting of the Programme;
• Have a commitment and willingness to cascade newly acquired knowledge both in a European/international and on a national level.

Mentee:

• Have a reasonable level of English (at least level B2) enabling professional communication with CEPOL and colleagues about enforcing the law on the selected topics;
• Have minimum three years’ work experience and expertise in the defined thematic area category;
• Participate in the Mentoring course combined with Kick-off meeting of the Programme;
• Have a commitment and willingness to cascade newly acquired knowledge both in a European/international and on a national level.

Peer:

• Have a reasonable level of English (at least level B2) enabling professional communication with CEPOL and colleagues about enforcing the law on the selected topics;
• Have minimum five years’ work experience and expertise in the defined thematic area category (except in the case of cybercrime, where at least three years of experience and expertise is essential);
• Participate in the Kick-off meeting of the Programme.

Detailed description of Mentee's, Mentor's and Peer's duties and responsibilities are described in the User Guide.

Application process

In 2026, law enforcement officials from EU Member States must submit their applications through LEEd, CEPOL’s Law Enforcement Education Platform. If you would like to submit your application as a registered LEEd user, the Exchange Plugin on LEEd is open for applications, please read the LEEd User Guide.

If you are not a registered LEEd user yet, please read more here on how to set up an account.

The extended deadline for applications is 17 March 2026, 23:55 CET.

The nomination of participants is carried out through a two-step process. The first round concerns the nomination of Mentees and Peers from the project partner countries. Following interviews with the shortlisted applicants, a list of selected participants from project partner will be established. On this basis, a second call for nominations will be launched to identify Mentors and Peers from EU Member States (hereinafter: EU MSs), with a view to establishing a pool of selected participants from the EU MSs. The list will be available in LEEd.

Upon completion of the matching process, participants will be contacted by CEPOL ICU and informed of their proposed counterpart(s). If all parties agree with the matching proposal, an official notification will be sent to the PoC, NEC and CNU.

However, please note that applications from EU Member States are welcome even if no suitable counterpart from a project partner country can be identified from the list.

If you have any questions or require additional details about the ICU Mentoring Programme, please contact: icu.mentoring@cepol.europa.eu.

Important information:

Applicants must have prior authorisation by their hierarchy/organisation to apply for the Mentoring Programme and / or they need to contact their CEPOL National Unit/National Exchange Coordinator in order to receive approval for applying. Their application can be rejected if they did not receive authorisation prior to applying.