External impetus, additional expertise and international exchange is provided by a dense network of international partners and, in particular, is enhanced through the so-called JMA chairs: i.e. professorships that are temporarily occupied by international experts and are hosted at the Johanna Mestorf Academy.

The JMA Chairs are crucial in consolidating the role of ROOTS for scientific discourse, exchange, and advancement. Together with additional DFG Mercator Fellows, Humboldt Fellows, and Humboldt Professorships, the JMA chairs both benefit from and contribute to the ROOTS research environment by conducting their own research as well as by supporting ROOTS researchers, thus inspiring new interdisciplinary research strands. This guarantees the transfer of expertise as topically bundled by the six ROOTS subclusters, as well as that of cross-sectional workgroups, advanced training, and in ROOTS field laboratories.

It is expected that young researchers, in particular, greatly profit from the exposure to such a collaborative environment, which also offers them the opportunity to be integrated into the international scientific community discourse already in an early stage of their careers.