Industry Report Reveals Challenges among Researchers and Research Office Leaders during COVID-19

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL, September 3, 2020 – Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is pleased to announce the publication of its annual study on the challenges that academic researchers face, the priorities of research office leaders, and key opportunities for research offices and libraries to support scholarship at institutions of higher education.

The study was commissioned by Ex Libris and conducted by Alterline, an independent research agency. The report presents findings from a survey of 314 researchers across a range of disciplines and 101 senior members of research offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

The key findings of the study include the following:

• Funding remains a top priority, but a lack of time and resources is a major challenge for researchers and research office members in trying to secure funding. Finding relevant funding opportunities (rated difficult or very difficult by 62% of the researchers participating in the study) and applying for grants (difficult or very difficult for 83% of the researchers) continue to be the most demanding part of the research life cycle.
• The assessment of research impact via citation-based metrics is popular and used by 90% of researchers and 63% of research office staff. However, researchers report increased frustration with such metrics and aspire for more nuanced measures that are suitable across non-STEM disciplines and reflect long-term social impact.
• Improving the university’s ranking and prestige is the second highest priority for the research office, after obtaining funding; however, 40% of research offices report that their institution does not have a portal to showcase their scholars’ work.
• Researchers are mostly positive about the support provided by their research office and library, but satisfaction rates are significantly lower than in 2019. COVID-19 may be a contributing factor, with the shift in research priorities, the decrease in resources, and the heightened focus on operational needs, such as facilitating online work.
• Senior members of research offices want to strengthen relationships with the library. The top areas of collaboration between the research office and the library consist of open-access compliance (noted by 64% of respondents), the tracking of publications by the institution’s researchers (46%), and the updating of researcher profiles (32%).
• Researchers’ support for open access is growing. Before COVID-19, 72% of researchers viewed open access favorably, and 18% now report that they view open access more positively since the onset of COVID-19.
• The administrative burden on researchers is still a major challenge, and COVID-19 might be aggravating the situation. According to 21% of researchers participating in the study, more than half their time is dedicated to administrative research tasks.

Ex Libris Corporate Vice President of Learning and Research Solutions Shlomi Kringel commented, “This year’s study highlights some of the unique challenges that COVID-19 has imposed on researchers and institutions of higher education. The report sheds light on ways in which research offices and libraries can use their expertise and further collaborate to address a variety of institutional needs, such as securing research funding, improving the visibility of research work, and relieving scholars of research-related administrative burdens.”

Zara Lawson, Research Manager at Alterline, said: “This year, we saw existing challenges intensified by COVID-19, with both members of research offices and researchers facing pressure to continue delivering excellent research, bring in funding, and manage workloads in the face of new restrictions and limited time to perform these activities. There is clear need for the improvement of technological systems to support these activities, and greater pressure to work collaboratively to meet these shared goals.”

Read the report (freely accessible) here.

About Alterline

Alterline is an insight and intelligence agency specialising in Higher Education. Over the past nine years we have worked on over 70 university campuses to drive positive change based on developing an independent and evidenced understanding of the student experience. Our tailored and collaborative insight services cover decision-making and experience across undergraduate and postgraduate student lifecycles including recruitment, teaching and learning, library user experience and alumni engagement. Building communities of best practice around insight and intelligence tools, our work offers University teams opportunities for shared learning and collaboration which underpin service performance improvement and drive exciting innovations.

About Ex Libris

Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is a leading global provider of cloud-based solutions that enable institutions and their individual users to create, manage, and share knowledge. In close collaboration with its customers and the broader community, Ex Libris develops creative solutions that increase library productivity, maximize the impact of research activities, enhance teaching and learning, and drive student mobile engagement. Ex Libris serves over 7,500 customers in 90 countries. For more information about Ex Libris, see our website, and join us on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

About ProQuest (https://www.proquest.com)

ProQuest is committed to supporting the important work happening in the world’s research and learning communities. The company curates content that matters to the advancement of knowledge, assembling an archive of billions of vetted, indexed documents. It simplifies workflows so that people and institutions use time effectively. And because ProQuest connects information communities, complex networks of systems and processes work together efficiently. With ProQuest, finding answers and deriving insights is straightforward and leads to extraordinary outcomes.

ProQuest and its companies and affiliates – Ex Libris, Alexander Street, Bowker – stand for better research, better learning, better insights. ProQuest enables people to change their world.