The Covid pandemic has been hugely disruptive for most aspects of society.  While the pandemic era has shone a fresh light on “key workers”, such as nurses, delivery drivers, and grocery store workers, the scientific community hasn’t received much attention over and above their ability to deliver the vaccines that are helping us to tackle the virus.

Research from Northwestern University reminds us of the tough time scientists have had during the pandemic, however, with the possible fallout from the period likely to be felt for some time.  The study found that while productivity has largely returned to pre-pandemic levels, there was a huge focus on Covid during 2020, which resulted in any researchers not tackling the issue initiating 36% fewer projects that year.

“On the surface, it appears that researchers are as productive as they used to be,” the researchers say. “But, instead of generating new directions, they are busy working on established topics, writing up existing research, reviving legacy projects, or revisiting old data. We found this to be true across many scientific disciplines—no fields were immune to the reduced number of projects.”

Change of focus

The research builds on previous work that explored the productivity of researchers during the pandemic.  This work found that the pandemic occupied so much of the community’s research that scientists who would ordinarily require labs and so on were forced to put projects onto the back burner.

The researchers revisited the project to see if the emergence of a number of vaccines meant that work had returned to a degree of normality during 2021.  They quizzed around 7,000 researchers from across the United States and Europe as well as analyzing the Dimensions database, which is the biggest research information source in the world.

The results show that while researchers who were doing Covid-related work initiated roughly the same number of projects in 2020 as they did in 2019, those who were working on non-Covid-related work experienced a significant drop.

“During the early phase of the pandemic, scientists reported a sharp decline in time spent on research,” the authors explain. “These productivity levels have recovered, which suggests some optimism. However, given the long gestation time for new research ideas to mature and be published, the decline in new projects suggests that the impact of the pandemic may not manifest in the publication record for years.”

New ideas

While the focus on Covid across society was a big factor, the lack of face-to-face interactions caused by the lockdown was equally problematic, as these encounters are often a vital source of new ideas.

The researchers hope that their findings help to guide policy responses that can help to reinvigorate the community again as we emerge from the Covid era.

“As researchers ourselves, we often meet new collaborators at conferences and dinners,” the researchers say. “We generate new ideas during coffee chats, bouncing around ideas with colleagues. Those interactions did not happen nearly as much during the pandemic.”

Unequal access

Even if things open up again, however, the situation is likely to remain challenging for researchers with young children, who suffered particularly during the pandemic given the additional pressures they faced during the lockdown.

With the situation remaining somewhat uncertain with regards to children and their vaccination status, the authors argue that parents may continue to struggle to return to their pre-Covid productivity levels, especially if they forego things like conferences and overseas travel.

“Many institutions are evaluating short-term data to inform their reopening policies,” the authors conclude. “Yet these short-term metrics may mask the long-lasting effects of the pandemic. Children under 12 remain ineligible for vaccines, which has further implications for scientists with young children. At the same time, our findings also suggest that short-term investments, such as childcare support, may yield long-term benefits.”