Researchers’ strategies to cope with the covid-19 impact on their activity

Abstract

This study aims to characterize the strategies researchers used to cope with Covid-19 impact and to explore the relationship between those strategies, researchers’ characteristics and the pandemic impact in their lives. 721 researchers, proportionally distributed among three Spanish regions, answered an online survey on the pandemic impact on their activity. Scales referred to social support, productivity, research tasks, working conditions, and work and personal life balance. An open-ended section was included to collect the strategies they used to cope with the pandemic consequences. 1528 strategies were content analysed and categorised based on their purposes and related to the rest of the impact variables. Results show the predominance of some strategies for the whole sample both at the work level, such as organizing work duties and plans, and at the personal level, such as maintaining life-work balance and improving personal well-being. Results stress to what extent a strategic approach contributed to minimize contextual issues or constraints even in an extreme situation as the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. A non-strategic approach, consisting of just reacting emotionally or dropping research, was the less effective way to maintain interest in research, sustained work and productivity and to warrant work-life balance. Developing a strategic approach was easier for those without caring responsibilities and for men. Women in our study, especially with caring responsibilities, had reduced opportunities to continue with their careers during the pandemic. No evidence of institutional strategies supporting researchers to cope with the situation was found.