INTRODUCTION
As we draw to the end of another busy year, I am really pleased to introduce our key achievements for 2024-2025 in this Annual Report. The Mullany Fund continue to be committed to our vision of addressing the barriers that some young people might face when trying to move forward into STEM areas in their adult lives, and this year has brought some fantastic developments.
The highlight for the year was winning STEM Educational Project of the Year (not for profit), at the STEM Cymru awards back in October 2024. What a fantastic evening we had! We felt very privileged to be finalists in this category, let alone be given this award. It felt wonderful to receive recognition for the hard work we’ve put in over the last few years, and to raise the visibility of our wonderful project, and the volunteers and teachers who support it. We are extremely privileged to work with such a committed group and they are the key to our success. We continue to be very grateful for their continuing support.
We were also delighted to welcome a new member of staff, Kathy James, who joined us in August 2025! Kathy worked previously in Welsh-medium education as an Assistant Headteacher, with STEM promotion always included in her school leadership roles, as well as in several evaluation roles. We look forward to working with her in the coming year.
As a result of our increased visibility, over the reporting period, we’ve been able to recruit a wider base of volunteer mentors, across a wider range of subject specialisms, and this in turn has enabled us to provide more comprehensive support to our young participants. We’re now covering 43 specialities with experienced mentors from industry business, research and frontline support as well as individuals who are studying to work in these areas. This year we’ve also continued to have many returning mentors, which we feel is always a good sign.
With a larger and more diverse Mentor Bank, we’ve been able to expand and consolidate, working over wider areas, and accessing more young people within these areas. We’ve made new connections, with Seren, See Science, STEM Ambassadors and EESW to name a few, and we hope to consolidate our collaborative working with them in the coming year. We also undertook a survey with local industries working in STEM to get their viewpoint on future workforce needs in STEM, with some interesting feedback on need for individual from more diverse socio-economic backgrounds to join the workforce in the future. We hope to develop further work experience opportunities and Q and A talks for young people in the year to come.
Our innovative digital matching system and in-house app Mentora, continues to provide a fantastic infrastructure, and we look forward to building on our achievements in the coming year!
RICHARD BOWEN, CHAIR OF TRUSTEES
Our achievements this year
The Mullany e-Mentoring project became operational in mid-November 2014, with phase 1 ending in December 2017. Phase 2 began in April 2018.
It has been exciting to progress into the tenth year overall of our Mullany e-Mentoring project, Together Making Futures. We aim to reduce the barriers faced by young people experiencing disadvantage, who wish to enter life-science, healthcare and wider STEM careers.
Our approach is to deliver a free online mentoring service that aims to connect 14–19-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds with a mentor who is studying or working in an area which might be of interest to their student. Through an interactive, online process, the mentor provides support to help them achieve their future goals, whether this is academically or vocationally related, as well as more generic support. The project also continues to run two additional elements, Future Routes and Insight talks, with the former providing work experience/shadowing opportunities and the latter providing online careers talks from our mentors.
This year we have further expanded our mentor base to include those working in engineering, physics, maths, ICT and chemistry, and these areas have been in demand from our mentees.
Through bridging the gap between industry and academic professionals and aspirational young people, the project aims to both educate and connect. We’re fortunate to have a wide range of work experienced professionals as volunteers, who can bring their experience to young people who may not otherwise have this valuable insight into a profession. They’re hearing about what it is to work in a profession, straight from ‘the horses mouth’. Mentors also include young adults, who have been studying within a particular STEM pathway and they’re able to give information to young people which is closer to where they are now- so the best of both worlds.
Our key achievements for this year were as follows:
We have continued to deliver the key impacts for young people directly involved in our e-Mentoring project, increasing knowledge and skills, removing barriers through e-Mentoring support and careers advice, and work experience. In the last year we’ve aimed to consolidate our presences in our existing project areas of Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, Merthyr, Rhondda Cynon Taff, Blaenau Gwent, Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire.
We have increased out number of Welsh speaking mentors who now cover 10 different specialist areas, and we have developed new strategic connections to recruit mentors with new specialties, from across the UK including a wider range of STEM professionals, with a focus this year on engineering and maths mentors, where ther is increasing demand.
We’ve also recruited target young people from across schools in south Wales, as well as voluntary organisations and the EOTAS scheme.
We’ve continued to talk develop our relations with See-Science, EESW, the STEM Ambassadors scheme, RAEng and Seren, with a view to working more collaboratively, Regarding work experience and Insight talks, this year the TMF team have focused on understanding more about potential future links and developing collaborations which can be consolidated in the future.
We have continued to use robust monitoring systems to measure our impact. Our key approach is using exit questionnaires at the end of each session, enabling us to confirm or otherwise that what we are doing reflects the needs of our participants. In order to embed a more structured incorporation of young people’s views, this year we’ve complete a survey with new and existing users about the continuing need for the project.
Here is what some of our project stakeholders have had to say about their involvement.
Mentors
‘Really enjoyed the project - had a very engaged student who asked very relevant questions throughout the weeks.’
‘I find it nice to try and help guide students and enable them to explore the different opportunities and support available to them.’
‘I have really enjoyed mentoring (my student) and I feel I have had a positive impact upon them. They clearly have a lot of questions regarding potential future careers and how they can get there and hopefully I was able to provide some guidance.’
Students
In relation to their involvement in e-Mentoring itself, we collected the following statements:
‘Brilliant project! My mentor was extremely helpful; I would definitely recommend this project to others.'
‘It has helped me find a better understanding of what i need to do to achieve the goals I need for my future.'
'It offered lots of answers to the questions I had on my future career.’
‘This programme was really helpful, as I was able to talk a mentor who provided me all the advice I required for university.’
From a year 10 student involved with the e-Mentoring, who will be returning to the programme, to be matched with the same mentor, in year 11:
'The Mullany fund is a invaluable resource to young people, that helped me to realise the fields of STEM that are available to me. The individual mentoring aided me with some of the concerns I had regarding my place in STEM. My mentor works in STEM, and because of this, they were able to give me valuable insight into the world of STEM. The project helped me to develop a shortlist of careers applicable to my chosen GSCEs and interests.'
Future Routes and Insight Talks
Alongside the e-Mentoring process, we also provided work experience/shadowing opportunities . This year, the TMF team have focused on understanding more about potential future links and developing collaborations which can be consolidated in the future, through delivering a questionnaire to key industry professionals. However, alongside this, we have again provided some exciting and useful opportunities for our young participants including two week- long work experience opportunities in a dental practice in Neath, which took place in the summer of 2025 and a week-long work shadowing opportunity in Healthcare Sciences at Swansea University. Plans for future workshops include the Assistive Construction Innovation, Centre face to face workshop, and talks supporting maths and revision.
From a year 11 student who was involved with our e-Mentoring programme and also accessed work experience this summer:
'Taking part in the Mullany Fund e-mentoring programme has been an invaluable experience that has further strengthened my passion for pursuing a career in dentistry. Being paired with a current dentist as my mentor gave me the opportunity to ask questions, gain insight into the profession, and receive honest and practical advice about the career. The week-long work experience placement arranged for me at a local dental clinic allowed me to observe a range of treatments, develop my understanding of patient care, and gain an appreciation for the lesser known sides of dentistry involving teamwork and precision. I have gained not only knowledge about dental procedures and oral health but also skills in communication, professionalism, and working in a clinical environment. This experience has strengthened my ambition to study dentistry at university and eventually qualify as a dentist. I am truly grateful to the Mullany Fund for their guidance, support, and for providing opportunities to me that were otherwise scarce and have brought me one step closer to achieving my goal.'
Matching Mentors and Students
We continue to use our innovative IT system, which has the potential to match every child in Wales with a mentor, and thus support the development of the future workforce in Wales in a cost-effective way. Using multiple factors to define the interest area of our target students, the automatic system will identify their best match in terms of those who can assist them most effectively. Our system easily enables us to scale-up the number of mentees reached in-line with the number of mentors we are able to recruit, and this has enabled us to offer our support across all of Wales this year. Through developing new connections with potential mentor sources, we continue to be able to largely match student and mentor with their first area of interest and speciality, and this is of great benefit to both.
Our Mentors Go Above and Beyond
Mentors are recruited from across the UK and now form part of a Mentor Bank with over 300 DBS checked mentors. When we get the chance to meet them face-to-face through our DBS checks, we really enjoy it! This year we have significantly increased the specialties that we offer and can now give mentees support around career pathways into engineering and maths related careers as well as our more established mentor speciality areas. We can never really anticipate, from session to session, where demand will be the greatest, but this year there has been a significant ask for support around maths and engineering.
We continue to have many mentors who return from session to session, something we are very proud of.
Many of them have faced difficult or interesting paths to get to where they are now:
‘Having grown up on a council estate in Cardiff I got into the University of Liverpool to study civil engineering. After graduating I studied a PhD in medical engineering at Imperial College London. My work as research at Imperial looks into tissue engineering for lower limb amputees.’
‘I am a biology undergraduate currently studying in London. My interests include biochemistry, cell biology, and ecology. I have only come to the UK 3 years ago to study my A Levels, so l am aware of the difficulties and challenges that young people might face when they want to figure out their future study or career paths.’
‘I am a midwife and a lecturer of midwifery in Cardiff University. Midwifery was my second career, I used to do something very different so I understand how hard it can be to decide what path to take in life. I am keen to talk with and support young people in making choices about their careers.’
‘I’m a software engineer, career switcher who emigrated from Ukraine in 2025. Used to be chief of marketing, chief editor, product manager for SaaS (Software as a Service). Worked in IT most of my career.’
Social media
We have continued to enhance our visibility across social media, with our regular monthly blogs and regular posts, and we also attended a workshop about raising our profile on other youth friendly platforms, including TikTok.
Award for Excellence
The Award for Excellence is given every year to students at either the University of the West of England (The Mullany Award for Excellence in Physiotherapy) or Swansea University (The Mullany Award for Excellence in Medicine). For the year 2024-2025, the winner was Charlotte Lee:
‘I was a completely surprised and extremely honoured to receive the email … informing me of .. the Mullany Prize. When (it was) explained what the prize was for and the history of its creation in honour of Ben and Cath I was further humbled and proud to have been selected to receive it. I'm truly grateful. It’s a very special award and I truly hope to continue to honour Ben (and Cathy’s) memory in my future work as a Physiotherapist.’
Congratulations Charlotte!
This summary highlights some key milestones for the Mullany Fund between 2024 and 2025. In due course, the 2026 report will be posted on our website.