Mentorship Capital: Fixing the Missing Middle in Research Careers

When Said Skounti, a young researcher from Morocco, walked into the Africa Climate Mobility Academy (ACMA) in 2024, he carried two things with him: a half-finished paper on the impacts of climate change on the cultural heritage of nomadic communities in southeastern Morocco, and a quiet frustration.

He had the data, but no map for how to navigate peer review and contribute to policy debates. His Academy mentor, Joram, had the time and patience to meet him draft by draft, walking him through revisions and showing him where his work could be applied in an active policy debate. Together, they compressed what might have been a two-year journey into six months. Said’s research has now been submitted for peer review, and Said is ready to present at regional academic and policy conferences, just in time. This is what mentorship capital looks like when it works. 

Why ACMA?

When we established the ACMA in 2024, the idea was simple yet ambitious: to create space for early-career African researchers to write up their work for publication and develop science that impacts policy. Too often, researchers from the continent contribute to studies but don’t get the recognition or support to publish as first authors, or to shape the bigger research agenda. The pilot edition of ACMA was designed to change that.

The Academy brought together mentorship, modest research grants, guided writing support, and an in-person write-shop hosted by Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST) in Kenya. Importantly, it included ongoing support after the write-shop for the finalisation of manuscripts, submission to peer reviewed journals, and responding to editors and reviewers’ comments – over the whole of 2025 and until today. The aim is straightforward: help fellows turn their research into peer-reviewed publications while strengthening southern-led science on climate, mobility, and peace.

The Missing Middle

Early-career researchers often fall into a “missing middle.” They have skills but little scaffolding, ideas but no networks, and research outputs that miss the very policy windows where evidence is most needed. Grants can fund data collection, but don’t guide you through peer review. Short courses build techniques but stop before the harder work of revision, resubmission, and co-authorship begins.

Without mentorship, research investments risk producing knowledge that is never put into practice. With mentorship, that same investment turns into policy-relevant publications, stronger networks, and alumni who reinvest in the next cohort. In short, mentorship multiplies the return on every other dollar spent on research capacity.

Defining Mentorship Capital

From ACMA’s first cycle, a simple but durable definition emerged:

Mentorship capital = time + trust + transfer.

• Time is the hours mentors sit with fellows, editing, encouraging, or just answering late-night questions.
• Trust is what lets a fellow send a vulnerable first draft, or a mentor co-author a piece that might attract scrutiny.
• Transfer is when a method, a network tie, or a peer-review trick doesn’t just stay with one fellow but diffuses to others, including the next cohort.

Pillars of Success (and Why They Worked)

Looking back, a few things really stood out as successes:

The intimacy of mentorship. Fellows consistently said the one-on-one support – especially in person – was a turning point for their writing. Having someone to turn to with every question in the process, makes a difference, particularly when you are navigating an unknown and often opaque peer review process.

Time to write. The “shut up and write” sessions became an unexpected highlight. Having uninterrupted time to focus, surrounded by peers doing the same, gave people both momentum and confidence. Unsurprisingly, this was the case for fellows and mentors alike.

Diversity of disciplines and ideas. Fellows and mentors came from different disciplines and perspectives, which made discussions richer and pushed people to think beyond their silos. And because the group was small, the atmosphere stayed personal, supportive, and collegial.

Strong partners and hosts. CMARN, as an existing vibrant network, facilitated broad outreach and elevated the quality of applications from fellows. MMUST did a fantastic job with co-leading the design of the programme, managing the grants, and hosting the in-person event. The smooth organization helped everyone focus on the work. Partnering universities and experts contributed invaluable support as mentors and resource persons.

Real Numbers and Results

Fellows logged an average of 80 mentor hours each, 75% remained active in the alumni network, and nearly all reported new professional ties they would not have made otherwise. Nine out of ten fellows successfully advanced their research, submitting draft papers to peer-reviewed journals. In addition, two more papers are now ready for submission from colleagues at MMUST, including a mentor and a junior project manager, reflecting the academy’s reach beyond fellows to its wider network of partners.

Looking Back and into the Future

The main lesson from the ACMA pilot is direct mentorship over extended periods of time matters enormously. While the small grants may have acted as an incentive to apply, it was the mentorship that all fellows identified as the most useful part of the programme.

Participants also sketched out exciting ideas for what comes next: a multi-year programme, stronger alumni networks that turn fellows into future mentors, dedicated journal partnerships, and exchanges with universities and CGIAR centers. Crucially, future academies should let African researchers define the themes and research questions from the start. And international organisations investing in such initiatives should always seek to locate them within existing institutions and networks, and to let those partners lead.

As we plan for the future, we need to keep asking: what exactly are we localizing, and who is really in the driver’s seat? The CGIAR Capacity Sharing Accelerator does just that. Through its Innovation Lab, the Marketplace and South-South & Triangular Cooperation it explores and documents tried and tested as well as new ways of strengthening, sharing and sustaining capacities at individual, organizational and systems levels. Follow-us on the CGIAR website and Linkedin.

Coming up next

This is a CapSha blog series – Building Local Research Capacity through Time, Trust, and Knowledge Transfer. In Part 2 of this series, we’ll unpack the real costs and inputs of mentorship (time, networks, micro-grants) and revealing how these investments translate into measurable, policy-relevant research outcomes, giving funders and peer institutes a clear picture of the “cost curve” from mentorship to impact.

Authors: Bina Desai, Joram Tarusarira, Ibukun Taiwo, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT

This work is carried out with support from the CGIAR Climate Action Science Program (CASP) and the CGIAR Capacity Sharing Accelerator. We would like to thank all funders who supported this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund: https://www.cgiar.org/funders/