Q&A: Science Has Been “Resilient” During Pandemic, Survey Finds

Responses collected from around 25,000 academics reveal that 20 percent couldn’t do their work at all in the spring, but most had found ways to keep their research going.

Written byCatherine Offord

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Scientists, like everyone else, have had to adapt creatively to the pandemic this year—whether by making labs out of their laundry rooms or quickly pivoting their research to SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes. In late October, journal publisher Frontiers reported results from a survey that asked those researchers how the pandemic has affected their lives. Based on data collected in May and June from 25,307 participants worldwide, the findings offer insight into scientists’ working conditions in the time of COVID-19, their attitudes to how scientific findings should be shared, and their biggest concerns for the future.

The Scientist spoke to Frontiers’s marketing and communications director Chantelle Rijs, who led the study along with executive editor Frederick Fenter, to learn more about the survey and its findings.

Chantelle Rijs: We are all very passionate about science and we are very passionate about the role that science plays ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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