Mentorship ‘strongly predicts’ protégé success in the sciences

An image showing a guiding hand

Source: © Gillian Blease/Ikon Images

Researchers whose mentors later win science prizes are two- to four times more likely to go on to have ‘superstar’ careers

Mentorship in the sciences is associated with a two- to four-fold increase in a protégé’s likelihood of having a so-called ‘superstar’ career, according to one of the largest studies ever conducted on this topic to date. The new research incorporates information about tens of thousands of mentors and mentees and draws on actual performance data as well as machine learning to avoid sampling and recall biases.