Mentorship For Publishing African Health Research

In the second post of a short series reflecting on last month’s Getting in the Access Loop webinar organised by the Humanitarian Centre, HIFA2015 and PLoS, Janice S. Pedersen from RAND Europe discusses how mentoring capacity for publication might be improved.

"I am new to mentoring, but have already found it to be very rewarding. I wouldn’t have even thought of it if I hadn’t been approached."

This comment, by a participant in the recent “Getting in the Access Loop” seminar, highlights both the benefits and need for better awareness of mentoring. The seminar participants focused specifically on ways researchers in Africa can get their work published more. Mentorship at various levels could help overcome barriers to joining the access loop of international health research publishing, while also fostering greater communication and stimulating innovative, collaborative international research. For example, the facilitation of mentoring with a focus on publication might beneficially be improved in three ways...