CABI Agriculture and Bioscience Welcomes New Mentees to Editorial Board

CABI Agriculture and Bioscience’s innovative Editor training and mentoring programme provides researchers from the Global South with the skills and knowledge for future editorial board roles and supports greater diversity and participation in the running of mainstream journals.

Background to the mentoring programme

CABI Agriculture and Bioscience is an open access journal publishing multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary research that addresses global challenges in agriculture and the environment.It is a key title in the CABI publications portfolio and plays an important role in encouraging research from the Global South. Indeed, authors from the Global South contributed almost half of all the journal’s articles in 2022 and were based in countries including Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Cameroon, Tanzania and Mali.

According to Dr. Niklaus Grünwald, Editor-in-Chief, “CABI Agriculture and Bioscience specifically aims to support research from underrepresented groups, women in agriculture, and highly transdisciplinary approaches that often do not find a home in traditional journals.”

To this end, earlier in 2023, CABI Agriculture and Bioscience successfully set up and delivered an Editor training and mentoring programme in association with Training Centre in Communication (TCC Africa) to help develop researchers from low-income countries (Research4Life group A and B countries) with an interest in peer review and editorial work. The programme offers an invaluable opportunity to gain hands-on experience of handling submitted manuscripts for an established journal according to industry standards and practices such as those established by COPE. Editorial board membership also helps to raise the profile of researchers within their field, and can lead to future editorial leadership roles.

The successful mentees

Congratulations to the following candidates who are now members of the CABI Agriculture and Bioscience Editorial Board:

Sana Arshad, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan (Expertise: Agroecology)

Awo Boatemaa Manson Incoom, University of Energy and Natural Resources, Ghana (Expertise: Climate Change)

Owusu Fordjour Aidoo, The University of Environment and Sustainable Development, Ghana (Expertise: Entomology & Pest Management)

Moses Ndiritu, Solidaridad East Africa, Kenya (Expertise: Food Security, Nutrition & Planetary Health)

Anthony Mwije, Makerere University, Uganda (Expertise: Horticulture)

Edson Kemoi, University of Kabianga, Kenya (Expertise: Microbiomes)

Mavir Carolina Avellaneda Barbosa, Zamorano University, Honduras (Expertise: Plant Pathology)

Rasha Ezzat, Assiut University, Egypt (Expertise: Plant Science & Breeding)

Adewale Ogunmodede, CABI, Nigeria (Expertise: Social Sciences)

A number of the mentees come from CABI member countries and we are very pleased to note a large number of strong applications from female researchers. We thank all applicants for their interest.

The selection process

The applicants were first invited to attend three live, interactive, online workshops facilitated by CABI and TCC Africa, an award-winning, non-profit trust established in 2006 and registered in Kenya. TCC Africa is the first African-based training centre to teach effective communication skills to scientists.

The workshops, which attracted over 300 registrations from 47 countries, addressed “Best practice and industry standards”, “Impact factors and persistent identifiers” and “Peer-review process”. Feedback included:

“I appreciated the new approach of inclusivity and equality.”

“The discussion was thought-provoking and enjoyable.”

“I found the workshop to be a nicely focused application of bias assessment and improvement principles.”

TCC Africa offered workshop participants one-to-one conversations for further career guidance, and a facilitated group WhatsApp chat for all participants to share experiences and questions in order to learn from each other. “We express our gratitude for the opportunity to collaborate with CABI in providing assistance to early career editors, namely through the TCC Africa mentorship programme. I am genuinely pleased with the positive outcomes of the training, and we anticipate its continued support for upcoming editors,” said Joy Owango, Executive Director, TCC Africa.

Participants in the workshops were then able to apply for mentorship, supported by a member of the CABI Agriculture and Bioscience Editorial Board.

“I am delighted by the success of this first edition of the mentoring programme and look forward to working with the mentees,” commented Niklaus Grünwald. “Throughout my career, I have benefitted from the attention and expertise of more experienced colleagues who have helped me to become the Editor I am today. This programme will have tangible benefits, the impact of which will endure far beyond the Certificate of Training.”

Stay up to date with CABI Agriculture and Bioscience

CABI Agriculture and Bioscience publishes open access research in primary and cross-cutting disciplines related to agriculture, food security, and the environment. It has a Journal Impact Factor of 3.9 (Q1) and is indexed in Scopus.

Stay up to date with the latest research by signing up for free e-mail alerts. Sign up to the CABI Agriculture and Bioscience newsletter for more general news and updates. Announcements about future mentoring programmes will be made in the newsletter.

About CABI

CABI is a unique, inter-governmental, not-for-profit scientific research and publishing organization, supported by 49 member counties. Its mission is to improve people’s lives by providing information and applying scientific expertise to solve problems in agriculture and the environment. A core objective is to increase the impact of science to practically address several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

CABI Agriculture and Bioscience supports CABI’s mission and the training and mentoring programme is an example of the meaningful impact CABI has on people’s lives. CABI is a signatory to the UN SDG Publishers Compact.

About TCC Africa

The Training Centre in Communication (TCC Africa) is the first African-based training centre to teach effective communication skills to scientists. TCC Africa is an award-winning Trust established as a non-profit entity in 2006 and is registered in Kenya. TCC Africa provides capacity support in improving researchers output and visibility training, scholarly and science communication.

TCC Africa held its first course in October 2006 at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda and, in late 2007, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Nairobi, School of Biological Sciences, and has its headquarters on the Chiromo Campus, Nairobi, Kenya.

TCC Africa’s mission is to contribute to the increase in profile, locally, and internationally, of African science, and its impact on the life of Africans, by improving skills in technical communication in all forms, at academia and other relevant forums, in Africa. TCC Africa’s objective is training, supporting, and empowering researchers through improving their research output and visibility.

Further reading

The Editor training and mentoring programme workshop recordings and slides are freely available on TCC Africa’s PubPub portal and can be used as a training resource for any new editors.

CABI Agriculture and Bioscience Special Collections: including open collections such as “Gender and Agriculture” and “International Year of Millets” and published collections such as “Fall Armyworm: Managing a significant threat to global food security”.

Find out more about peer review processes from COPE.

Read about Peer Review Week 2023 exploring peer review and the future of publishing.