Sir, there is limited availability for undergoing research as a dental student. Luckily, I am situated in Manchester, the home of Cochrane Oral Health and where The Manchester Undergraduate Dental Conference takes place every academic year. Others are not so lucky. As a fourth-year dental student, I am aware of the importance of evidence-based dentistry and the crucial role that research plays in bringing new innovative treatment to help our patients. Surely, dental students should be given more opportunities to participate in this research as we are the dentists of the future and will be using the treatment that is being evaluated in research today. Doing research during a global pandemic is hard enough but being a dental student trying to participate in research is harder. This appears to be a global problem as the number of hands-on mentored dental research programmes is diminishing in the United States.1 Ping found in his questionnaire completed by dental students from a high-ranking school in China, that 31% of students thought that 'the teachers did not guide the students to think and explore actively'.2 I suggest that every dental school should have a research mentor in the faculty that can guide students on how to publish an article, write a literature review or carry out an audit. The mentors should help the student come into contact with other like-minded students across different universities so collectively research can be carried out as a group and the mentor should help give contacts of researchers so the student can collaborate with their work.