Postdoctoral supervision and research leadership are crucial yet underexamined dimensions of academic work. In this perspectives piece, we reflect on mentorship across Singapore and France and situate it within output-driven research ecosystems that risk reducing groups to production units. Using a narrative and workshop-based approach, including a mentorship workshop at the FEBS-IUBMB ENABLE 2024 conference in Singapore, we explore how mentees define good mentorship. Participants consistently prioritised everyday human interactions over traditional metrics, highlighting empathy, trust, humility, availability, and clear communication. Integrating these insights with educational literature, we illustrate that humane, ethically grounded mentorship is essential for research integrity, well-being and sustainable scientific capacity.
Tan et al. (Thu,) studied this question.