TY - JOUR
T1 - The pandemic and changes in early career researchers’ career prospects, research and publishing practices
AU - Jamali, Hamid R.
AU - Nicholas, David
AU - Sims, David
AU - Watkinson, Anthony
AU - Herman, Eti
AU - Boukacem-Zeghmouri, Cherifa
AU - Rodríguez-Bravo, Blanca
AU - Świgoń, Marzena
AU - Abrizah, Abdullah
AU - Xu, Jie
AU - Tenopir, Carol
AU - Allard, Suzie
N1 - Funding Information:
Work was supported by the grant number G-2020-14034 awarded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (https://sloan.org/) to Carol Tenopir. The funder played no role in any part of the design or execution of the study or in the preparation of the manuscript. The authors would like to thank the participants for completing the survey, and the publishers and institutions that helped with the distribution of the survey.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright: © 2023 Jamali et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Copyright: © 2023 Jamali et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2023/2
Y1 - 2023/2
N2 - Introduction As part of the Harbnger-2 project, this study aimed to discover the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on junior researchers’ work-life, career prospects, research and publishing practices and networking. Methods An online international survey of 800 early career researchers (ECRs) was conducted in 2022. A questionnaire was developed based on three rounds of interviews and distributed using multiple channels including publishers, social media, and direct email to ECRs. Results The impact of the pandemic on career prospects, morale, job security, productivity, ability to network and collaborate, and quality and speed of peer review has on the whole been more negative than positive. A quarter of ECRs shifted their research focus to pandemic-related topics and half of those who did, benefited largely due to increased productivity and impact. The majority worked remotely/from home and more than two-thirds of those who did so benefitted from it. While virtual or hybrid conferences have been embraced by the majority of ECRs, around a third still preferred face-to-face only conferences. The use of library online platforms, Sci-Hub, ResearchGate, Google Scholar and smartphone to search and access full-text papers increased. ECRs prioritised journals with fast submission procedures for the publishing of their papers and spent more time on increasing the visibility of their research. Fees were a problem for publishing open access. Conclusion Although, generally, the pandemic negatively impacted many aspects of ECRs’ work-life, certain research areas and individuals benefited from being more appreciated and valued, and, in some cases, resulted in increased resources, better productivity and greater impact. Changes, such as the use of digital technologies and remote working created new opportunities for some ECRs. While continuing work flexibility and hybrid conferences might benefit some ECRs, institutions should also take measures to help those ECRs whose career and productivity have been adversely impacted.
AB - Introduction As part of the Harbnger-2 project, this study aimed to discover the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on junior researchers’ work-life, career prospects, research and publishing practices and networking. Methods An online international survey of 800 early career researchers (ECRs) was conducted in 2022. A questionnaire was developed based on three rounds of interviews and distributed using multiple channels including publishers, social media, and direct email to ECRs. Results The impact of the pandemic on career prospects, morale, job security, productivity, ability to network and collaborate, and quality and speed of peer review has on the whole been more negative than positive. A quarter of ECRs shifted their research focus to pandemic-related topics and half of those who did, benefited largely due to increased productivity and impact. The majority worked remotely/from home and more than two-thirds of those who did so benefitted from it. While virtual or hybrid conferences have been embraced by the majority of ECRs, around a third still preferred face-to-face only conferences. The use of library online platforms, Sci-Hub, ResearchGate, Google Scholar and smartphone to search and access full-text papers increased. ECRs prioritised journals with fast submission procedures for the publishing of their papers and spent more time on increasing the visibility of their research. Fees were a problem for publishing open access. Conclusion Although, generally, the pandemic negatively impacted many aspects of ECRs’ work-life, certain research areas and individuals benefited from being more appreciated and valued, and, in some cases, resulted in increased resources, better productivity and greater impact. Changes, such as the use of digital technologies and remote working created new opportunities for some ECRs. While continuing work flexibility and hybrid conferences might benefit some ECRs, institutions should also take measures to help those ECRs whose career and productivity have been adversely impacted.
KW - Humans
KW - Pandemics
KW - COVID-19/epidemiology
KW - Publishing
KW - Research Personnel
KW - Peer Review
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85148250356&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85148250356&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0281058
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0281058
M3 - Article
C2 - 36791119
AN - SCOPUS:85148250356
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 18
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
IS - 2
M1 - e0281058
ER -