Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on work capacities of researchers: An overlooked problem

Background: The new coronavirus pandemic has substantially changed research and teaching activities. The aim of our survey was to investigate the impact of the current health emergency on teaching and research activities, focusing on the perspectives of research unit members. Methods: This was an anonymous web-survey conducted between April 29 and May 6, 2020. All members of the center of Biology, Medicine, and Health sciences (BMS) of the Lorraine University were invited to participate in this survey through collective e-mails. Results: Eighty-three subjects participated in our survey. Research activities were totally (86.8%) or partially (75.9%) stopped in most centers and most of respondents were working from home occasionally (15.7%) or every day (78.3%). The main activity during lockdown was writing original articles from already collected data (39.8%). More than a third of the respondents (39.7%) reported remarkable reduction in their work. Similarly, most of conferences (82%) and internships (73.3%) were canceled and graduation of students were postponed in 58.8% of cases. Conclusions: Work from home was a valid alternative to workplace activities during the pandemic. Further studies are needed to evaluate the long-term effects of this new approach on quality of research and teaching. Research Article Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on work capacities of researchers: An overlooked problem Ferdinando D’Amico1,2, Didier Mainard3, Cedric Baumann4 and Laurent Peyrin-Biroulet2* 1Department of Biomedical Sciences, Humanitas University, Pieve Emanuele, Milan, Italy 2Department of Gastroenterology and Inserm NGERE U1256, University Hospital of Nancy, University of Lorraine, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France 3CHRU, Hôpital Central, 29, avenue du Maréchal de Lattre-de-Tassigny, 54000 Nancy, France 4Methodology, Data Management and Statistic Unit, MPI Department, University Hospital of Nancy, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France Received: 12 May, 2021 Accepted: 20 May, 2021 Published: 21 May, 2021 *Corresponding author: Laurent Peyrin-Biroulet, MD, PhD, Professor, Inserm NGERE and Department of Gastroenterology, Nancy University Hospital, University of Lorraine, 1 Allée du Morvan, 54511 Vandoeuvrelès-Nancy, France, Tel: (+33) 383153661; Fax: (+33) 383153633; E-mail: ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2536-6618


Introduction
Since December 2019, the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak has globally disrupted lives and habits of all people in a few months [1,2]. Infection can be easily transmitted through contact, aerosol, or droplet, and fecal-oral transmission cannot be excluded [3,4]. Social distancing measures were adopted to prevent its spread, including suspension of all non-essential work activities and non-urgent movement [5,6]. Research and university staff were not excluded from these recommendations [7,8]. As of May 1, 2020 in the "Grand Est" region of France including Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne and Lorraine, 3824 patients were hospitalized of which 517 in intensive care unit and 2915 people had died from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic 9 . At the time of writing, the lockdown was set in the Lorraine region by the government authorities according to a national Business Continuity Plan (BCP) [10]. To limit the risk of contagion, most researchers were working from home and all face-to-face teaching activities were interrupted and replaced by online teaching. A signifi cant reduction in research time was reported, leading to a lower number of publications, particularly among female researchers [11][12][13][14]. The center of continuation were management of laboratory animals (10), priority protocols (4), and protocols almost completed at the start of the health crisis (4). Importantly, a small percentage of respondents (11/83, 13.2%) started working on coronavirus and only a few subjects (12/83, 14.5%) were interested in projects dedicated to COVID-19. As for teaching activity, lockdown prevented many subjects (29/47, 61.7%) from participating in university graduation committees, and graduation of students were postponed in over half of cases (20/34, 58.8%). Six people were members of a university graduation committee by videoconference and this approach was considered of very poor (2/6, 33.3%) or less good (2/6, 33.3%) quality compared to traditional face-to-face discussion. Furthermore, most of conferences (41/50, 82%) and internships (33/45, 73.3%) were canceled. The main concerns of the researchers were related to delay in progress of ongoing studies (65/83, 78.3%) and impossibility of generating new results (56/83, 67.5%).

Discussion
This survey evaluated the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on research and teaching activities. Most of the activities have been stopped and many researchers are working from home, negatively impacting their effi ciency. This is probably due to the lack of motivation and dedicated workplaces, and the distractions that can affect home working (e.g. the presence family members). Unfortunately, it is not known how long the health emergency will last and when it will be possible to return to the usual work routine. What is certain is that the pandemic has led to a rapid change in the way of working in the fi eld of research and university. In this context, some precautions could help increasing work productivity: to schedule the work, to behave in the same way as when you go to the research unit, to exercise, and to keep in touch with colleagues [15]. Teaching activity was greatly infl uenced by the emergency as all face-to-face activities were prohibited. Most of the conferences and internships were canceled, while the students' graduations were postponed or discussed by teleconference with questionable results. Our data are confi rmed by other studies which report that approximately 80% of clinical trials were stopped or interrupted during the pandemic, while most research activities were suspended [16].
Conversely, the number of scientifi c publications was not reduced, supporting alternative working approaches [16,17].  the same type of problems, suggesting that our data may be representative and reproducible. The workplace activity is not replaceable, but until the lockdown is overcome and suitable social distancing measures will be adopted in the workplace together with the availability of personal protective equipment for all workers, work from home will be a valid alternative.
During the pandemic, the number of scientifi c publications signifi cantly increased [11,18]

Conclusion
The researchers' work underwent major changes during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic due to the suspension of many activities and the implementation of smart working. Surprisingly, the pandemic had scarcely affected the productivity of the research unit members, underlining how smart working could be a valid alternative to workplace activities.

Author's contribution
LPB conceived the study. DM, and CB developed the survey questionnaire. FD wrote the fi rst draft and created the table.
LPB critically reviewed the content of the paper. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the fi nal manuscript.