About the project

In the earlier stages of the pandemic, we worked with Vitae to examine the impact of COVID-19 on the working lives of doctoral and early career researchers. It was clear that COVID-19 and the associated lock down was causing substantive disruption to the study and work of researchers across the UK. The pandemic response varied across universities and research funders, so we wanted to try and develop a national picture for how these groups were being affected.

The survey included questions relating to the impact of COVID-19 on research work, mental wellbeing, and social connection.

Furthermore, we explored changes to employment outside of academia, such as living arrangements and caring arrangements, and the consequent effect of these changes on research work.

As the pandemic progressed, so too did our project. It was clear that COVID-19 was to be a feature of lives for much longer than initially anticipated and so we staggered the release of our findings, to provide some initial results and suggestions whilst also working on a broader report on the challenges and benefits of the lockdown, which was released at the end of 2021.

Below, you can find the suggestions we first made about how to support early career researchers and the later published full report.

1. Early findings

In our initial review of responses we were able to see that, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the UK in March 2020, in the early stages of lockdown many doctoral and Early Career Researchers felt their institutions had forgotten them.

We had surveyed 5,900 ECRs across 128 UK universities at the end of April 2020, and, whilst almost two thirds of respondents agreed that their supervisor/line manager had done all they could to support them, only 38% felt the same way about their institution. A quarter of respondents identified that their relationship with their university had worsened since the pandemic began.

The pressing question was: what can universities do to support their ECRs?

Our survey asked respondents for suggestions of how their supervisors/line manager and institutions could help them to work effectively during lockdown. So we worked with a small team of ECRs to complete thematic analysis on a representative subset of over 1,000 suggestions.

We took an inductive approach to analysis and worked at a semantic level with the aim to create a rich description of the dataset. All suggestions were double coded, and the research team worked together to develop themes from codes identified.

We identified 7 initial suggestions for how to implement support.

i. Listen, acknowledge and understand ​

This is a challenging time; ECRs want institutions to listen to their experiences, acknowledge the difficulties being faced, and discuss the impact on their work and wider life. As COVID-19 has reduced employment options, ECRs need the opportunity to talk about career impact and financial concerns. Supervisors/line manager can help with networking opportunities, guidance around funding issues and navigating extensions. Their encouragement to prioritise self-care has helped ECRs to cope and manage guilt around struggles to maintain productivity. International ECRs have faced particular stresses, stuck between two regularity systems – those of the country where they are studying and/or working and those of their home country – not fully protected by either.

[My supervisor has] acknowledged it isn't business as usual and removed pressure to function as if it is.

ii. Maintain regular contact and ask how your team members are doing. ​

Regular online meetings supplemented with informal catch ups are important for connection. Working online, communication can become impersonal. Closer supervision, with discussions around work structure, can boost motivation. A personable, supportive and reassuring approach is appreciated given the uncertainty created by COVID-19 and lockdown. Researchers have appreciated their supervisors/line managers being available, responsive and taking steps to enable them to ask questions easily and get rapid answers.

My supervisor has set up weekly meetings with me online... it keeps me motivated to keep on top of my work… and it also keeps me feeling connected to the University.
​

iii.Information needs to be timely, clear, thoughtful, regular and relevant ​

While some researchers have been overwhelmed by the volume of communication from their institutions, others have felt there to be a deficit. Regular, clear and thoughtful information allays uncertainty. Where possible, information should be tailored to specific degrees and research areas.
Researchers want clarity around changes to institutional deadlines and procedures; revised expectations, assessments and deadlines; options for contract extensions and funding; and consideration for impact on progress. The tone of communication has an impact; good humour, honesty and sympathetic messaging are appreciated.

iv.Secure and offer extensions: Funding, contracts and deadlines. ​

Many respondents acknowledged that decisions around funding need to be made in discussion with funding bodies. While not without challenges, researchers would like to see their university lobbying on their behalf and have reassurance that senior leadership teams have not forgotten them. While extensions to submission deadlines for doctoral researchers are appreciated, these need to be accompanied by financial support. Clear information here is essential.
​
They could provide clearer guidelines/evidence of their concern relating to fixed term contracts and open-ended contracts subject to funding.  Me and my colleagues feel like we've had to scrabble around together ourselves to work out what each of the funding bodies are saying the options are right now.

v.Facilitate connectivity

Institutions and supervisors/line manager can play a role in facilitating peer-to-peer connection, providing the direction, virtual spaces and tools for connectivity. This may be through organising informal catch ups or academic seminars. Some supervisors/line manager have established buddy schemes within their teams, hosting ‘online lunch,’ or ‘virtual wine and cheese evenings.’

My supervisor instigated a regular weekly coffee meeting for all the members of our research centre via Zoom, which for the last 4 weeks has been a very helpful thing.

vi.Support revised goal setting, adapting and clarifying expectations ​

Support researchers to develop contingency plans and set new, revised, goals. There are real benefits in identifying small and short-term goals, as this can build a sense of achievement, thus sustaining motivation. Institutions and supervisors/line managers need to recognise the challenges that COVID-19 has created for work and revise expectations accordingly. Clear expectations are needed, so ECRs know what they should be working towards. Researchers have appreciated supervisors/line managers explicitly lowering expectations and providing clear reassurance that reduced productivity is okay.  ​

vii. Actively support your researchers to work from home ​

Check that your researchers have the equipment, resources and software that they need to work from home. Approximately a quarter of the survey respondents identified that they had reduced or no access to the software needed to support their research. One in five identified that working from home had reduced access to a computer. Half of respondents requiring assistive technology for their work reported having reduced or no access to this. Researchers would like support accessing resources, including journals, books, software and equipment. Advice and guidelines around effective remote working are appreciated. Institutions should be providing training opportunities online, to prevent gaps in essential skills development. ​​

                         Preliminary findings Report 

Measure included within survey:

• Academic:
  • Position within academia
    • Doctoral student
    • Employed primarily to undertake research (e.g. research assistant, post-doctoral researcher, research fellow)
    • Employed to undertake teaching and research
    • Employed to undertake teaching only
    • Other (please specify)
  • Nature of contract
  • Years in research
  • Academic area
  • University
  • Primary source of funding
  • Current funding end date
• Wellbeing
  • Short WEMWBs - Stewart-Brown, S., Tennant, A., Tennant, R., Platt, S., Parkinson, J., & Weich, S. (2009). Internal construct validity of the Warwick-Edinburgh mental well-being scale (WEMWBS): a Rasch analysis using data from the Scottish health education population survey. Health and quality of life outcomes, 7(1), 15.
  • Kessler 6 - Kessler, R. C., Andrews, G., Colpe, L. J., Hiripi, E., Mroczek, D. K., Normand, S. L., ... & Zaslavsky, A. M. (2002). Short screening scales to monitor population prevalences and trends in non-specific psychological distress. Psychological medicine, 32(6), 959-976.
  • Short UCLA loneliness scale + Single item loneliness question - Russell, D. W. (1996). UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3): Reliability, validity, factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66, 20–40
• Audit of impact on research
  • Impact on work
  • Access to research tools and resources
  • Support from supervisor / line manager
  • Support from university
• Employment outside of academia:
  • Has this changed
  • What is the impact of these changes on your finances?
• Nationality
  • Changes to country of residence
  • Visa concerns
• Daily life
  • Changes to living arrangements
  • Changes to caring responsibilities
  • Current stressors
• Demographics
  • Age
  • Ethnicity
  • Gender
  • Disability

You can find a summary of the early data from our survey in this short article by Nicola Byrom (2020): https://elifesciences.org/articles/59634 and data is available via figshare: 
​
Byrom, Nicola; Metcalfe, Janet (2020): Impact of COVID 19 on Doctoral and Early Career Researchers. figshare. Dataset. 
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12361493.v1

Where the sample size is large enough to ensure anonymity of respondents, Universities may have access to their university's data.

2. Final published report (2021)

'The impact of the first COVID-19 lockdown in the UK for doctoral and early career researchers'

This research was collaboratively developed by a group from across the SMaRteN network including doctoral researchers and early career researchers (ECRs), our network lead Nicola Byrom, and Dr Patricia Jackman who we have also previously funded on other research projects into doctoral wellbeing and who leads our PhD Student Mental Health SIG.

Findings highlight how the support provided was not substantial enough, but also demonstrated how support must be tailored and flexible to consider the personal circumstances and needs of individual researchers. For this reason, we are particularly delighted that ECRs were such a fundamental part of the research activity itself.

The full report can be read and downloaded online here. 

Jackman, P.C., Sanderson, R., Haughey, T.J. et al. The impact of the first COVID-19 lockdown in the UK for doctoral and early career researchers. High Educ (2021).

​https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-021-00795-4