COVID-19: The Impact on Health and Medical Researchers

The second report in Research Australia’s COVID-19 series examines how the pandemic affected Australia’s health and medical researchers themselves. An online survey, promoted through Research Australia’s newsletters, email communications and social media, was open from 29 April to 18 May and received responses from 1212 individual researchers, 79.4% of whom worked at a university. More than half (54.5%) were employed on contract, rising to 65.5% among early career researchers. While 95.4% considered Australia’s overall response effective, 80% reported that their research had been adversely affected; 51.4% said their research could not be undertaken remotely and 49.8% were unable to recruit participants. Only 3.69% had received additional government funding. Among those expecting effects beyond 2020, 88.8% anticipated delays in research milestones and 45.8% expected to lose staff. Using the mid point of respondents’ estimates, Research Australia conservatively estimated the total financial impact reported by respondents at $75 million. Respondents reported some improvement in collaboration and in organisational and ethics procedures. Nearly two thirds (62.5%) supported a longer-term restructure of Australia’s research and innovation funding framework, and 83.5% supported an automatic six-month extension to all PhD scholarships. Proposed reforms centred on more secure employment for research staff, funding reserves for future pandemics and governments covering the full cost of the research they fund.