UKÄ warns that restrictions on visits and opening hours hampered studies and record keeping
The coronavirus pandemic has significantly affected Swedish researchers’ ability to do their job, as many struggled to obtain fresh data, a report has shown.
An interim report from UKÄ, the Swedish higher education authority, showed that data collection could not always be performed as planned. This is despite the fact that Swedish social distancing and lockdown regulations to curb the spread of the virus were less severe than in most other European countries.
The report pulls together information from various studies on data collection under the pandemic. One study, comprising a survey of Sweden-based researchers, found that many respondents said gathering data had become more difficult—although for different reasons.
Closures and restrictions
Researchers in the humanities and social sciences suffered from library closures and lack of access to archives, while researchers in the medical and health sciences were held back by restrictions on patient visits.
For all researchers, it was more difficult to conduct field studies and experiments, the report found. International collaboration was also hampered due to travel restrictions, it said.
As Covid-19 spread across Sweden, the country did not initially close all universities, restaurants, shops and offices as did many other countries. However, Sweden issued general advice for people to restrict contact and forbade larger gatherings.
On 26 January, Sweden extended its rules as the virus spread quickly in the country over Christmas.
Many Swedish researchers said that at the height of the pandemic they had less time for research as remote teaching and resulting technical issues had taken over most of their day. Almost half of the surveyed researchers said they had not spent all their funds due to these issues.
Another study that fed into the report looked at how coronavirus affected operations at Swedish research infrastructure. It concluded that most infrastructure, such as laboratories, databases and libraries, continued to operate, with computing infrastructure remaining available to analyse large amounts of data.
However, the study found that the full potential of these different types of infrastructure had not been deployed during the pandemic. The report proposed a better national strategy to coordinate research infrastructure during a pandemic, so as to better collect and use clinical data for research purposes.
Impact on recruitment
A third study incorporated by UKÄ into the report showed that the pandemic’s impact on recruitment was less severe than estimated—at least in the short term. The report covered only the year 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. It said that the long-term impact of travel restrictions on researcher recruitment in Sweden deserved further study.
The report echoed these sentiments in its conclusions, saying that the longer effects of the pandemic on Swedish research activity need to be investigated in more detail. At present, Swedish higher education institutions are functioning well under the circumstances, UKÄ concluded.
UKÄ was tasked by the Swedish government to study how political decisions taken because of coronavirus had affected universities and research activity in the country. The report is the second in a series that will explore the state of Swedish higher education and research, and its performance throughout the pandemic.