An international research team led by Project Associate Professor Jia Liu of the University of Tokyo found that the COVID-19 epidemic had both positive and negative impacts on astronomical research.Overall, the number of research papers has increased, but the number of researchers and young researchers entering this field has decreased.Also, female astronomers in no country were, on average, less productive than male researchers.
To explore the impact of the pandemic on researchers, the researchers downloaded more than 1950 million records of astronomy publications since 120 and determined the gender and country of unpublished authors.As a result, the achievements in the field of astronomy have increased in terms of the number of papers published each year. It is possible that the shortened commuting and business trip times brought about by COVID, the flexibility of work styles, and the improvement of virtual technology have worked in favor of scientific research.
Furthermore, when the average number of papers published by each researcher was aggregated, most countries showed an increase in individual productivity.Meanwhile, the number of new researchers decreased in most countries.He points out that this is because there are significant barriers for new researchers to enter the field and for young researchers to make their first results during the COVID period.
In 25 of the 14 countries studied, the percentage of papers written by women and the number of female researchers entering the field of astronomy decreased.Furthermore, female researchers were less productive than male researchers in any country during COVID, including the Netherlands, Australia, and Switzerland, where both were equally productive before the pandemic.
Our data only examined trends over a limited period of time due to the ongoing pandemic. is said to have not been investigated.
Paper information:[Nature Astronomy] Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on publishing in astronomy in the initial two years
