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I’ve told everyone that I will support them, financially and professionally, for the duration of their degrees – which, of course, will take longer to complete. For the first two months of the shutdown, I asked students to work on papers and reviews, and to take webinars on topics of interest. We were given permission to enter the labs in late May to begin decommissioning. Normally, I would expect my students to have sighed and accepted this task with resignation. COVID changed all that – they rushed back to lab. Now, a month later, they’re pretty tired of cleaning glassware and getting rid of old chemicals and equipment, but they’re also excited about the move to Calgary.

In my role as Head, I have interacted with the administration of the university. The Provost and Dean of Science have stated unequivocally that no one will be evaluated by their productivity in 2020. All tenure-track faculty are given an automatic extension (which they can decline). On a departmental level, we need to keep this in mind for students who are applying to our graduate programs – those who were undergraduates when the pandemic hit cannot be evaluated as if 2020 were a normal year.

On the other hand, the pandemic will inevitably cause economic recession, which could cause funding for scientific research to be limited. Experimental work will be impacted significantly due to the closuree of labs.

The pandemic might also cause restrictions on face to face meetings and conferences, with international conferences being more reliant on online meetings, such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams.

In the long term, the life sciences, chemistry, and materials science will attract significant attention. There is so much unknown to be explored.

What do you think researchers should change or be prepared for the potential change caused by the current pandemic?

Governments should be realizing how important it is for scientists, engineers and doctors to work together on problems that have global impact.

Multi-disciplinary studies should be encouraged and governments should encourage and foster international collaborations, especially on the development of vaccines and approaches to mitigating the spread of the virus.

The internet connectivity in remote places in India was not that good, and most of them struggled to use any online software. However, we discussed a lot of diverse topics (over the phone) that we generally refrain from doing otherwise. Anyway, we soon realized that we must be patient. I would request everyone to try to remain positive, though I know it is easier said than done.

How do you think the current pandemic could influence your research field in the short and long term?

As a consequence of the above there will decreased research outputs as well as decreased research funding available for non-COVID research. The research budgets of all countries will reduce across the board as will the number of PhD graduates as international travel restrictions prevent the enrolment of one of the major university intakes/outputs as well as financial inputs.                

How do you think the current pandemic could shape the research community in the short and long term?

In addition to the above – behavioural changes will be that there will be less attendance at conferences, more zoom mediated collaborations and more flexible working times. However this will also result in less social contact which I have found is very often the main source of new ideas and collaborations which would not happen if only distance communication continued. We will need to find a good balance of these.

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What do you think researchers should change or be prepared for the potential change caused by the current pandemic?                                         

I think that researchers should be prepared to attend to fewer conferences and have less access to specific equipment.

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How do you think the current pandemic could influence your research field in the short and long term?

It is too early to comment on the overall influences of the current pandemic. The shutdown has already had negative impacts with research facilities shut down, and uncertainties over projects that might be postponed or cancelled as government priorities change. However, there are also opportunities, particularly in our field [medicinal chemistry]. The whole world is desperately looking for a cure for COVID-19 and we have already initiated some Med Chem projects, aiming to develop expertise and knowledge in this area, and to adopt this in our research towards the long-term goal of such a cure.

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Here are some tips that I would like to share with you. First, do not focus too much on COVID-19 news/blogs. Second, prioritize the things you want to accomplish and try to complete them on time. There are lots of remote learning/coping resources and opportunities that you may find helpful to facilitate you through this difficult time. Since you have more time to yourself, try to allocate some time every day dedicating on writing. Finally, focus on things that really matter to you, e.g. being with your family, eating a healthy diet, and doing exercise frequently.

How do you think the current pandemic could shape the research community in the short and long term?

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed our life in many ways. One of these changes is the major disruption in the research activities for the research community. We will have less lab-based research results and findings in the short term. However, going through this difficult time together, we will learn how to deal with crisis like this and become more resilience to the future ones.

In the long term, it will give us an opportunity to rethink the way we work and communicate. I think we should use this time to rework on existing research process to achieve higher efficiency and productivity and identify new ways to strengthen the research community. Last but not the least, we should support each other and get through this pandemic together.

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Do you have any tips to share with global researchers who are still being impacted by the pandemic, or might be impacted again in future?   

No one knows the next global pandemic, but science always goes into the unknown. How to balance the exponential population growth and environmental issues is the key in the research of Environmental 91AV, and this is what we called "Never forget why you started, and you can accomplish your mission".

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