How to continue research in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis
How our researchers succeed in continuing their studies and collaborating with other scientists around the world.
Laurence Dumont holds a PhD in neuropsychology, is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre d’Études sur le Stress Humain (CESH) and a lecturer at HEC Montréal. She is interested in cognition and stress at work. Laurence and her colleagues work with children and adults, and her research is as much physiological as psychological. Normally, when the researchers need to carry out physiological tests, they collect saliva or take vital functions from individuals, but in the midst of confinement, and because the Centre’s studies are not deemed essential, they had to come up with a plan B, and they consider themselves very lucky. First of all, they made the entire study process virtual, using online forms. Because the interviews are virtual, you have to double your efforts and demonstrate excellent communication skills. This is all the more important for researchers doing quantitative studies, such as the Centre d’études sur le stress humain.
We also had to review the number of people available. The laboratory had two French trainee-students who had to return home in a hurry. A new trainee with a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience is due to join the laboratory this summer. Part of her work was to be the collection of physiological data. This will obviously be impossible. The Centre has therefore decided that she will work on data already collected.
All these changes also bring interesting opportunities.
Public participation in the Centre’s studies has increased. People see it as a way of making themselves useful. Laurence Dumont explains: “Many people have the time to take part in studies, or see their relevance even more clearly. So we’ve really got a lot of interest from the general public.”
Because the studies are carried out online, the researchers are no longer limited geographically, and survey responses are very diverse, with people living in Rouyn-Noranda or Gaspésie; usually, respondents live in Montreal. An unfortunate point, however, is that collecting data via online surveys excludes people who don’t have regular access to the Internet.
Laurence notes an interesting point about the attentive listening she’s received in recent weeks. She explains:
“It’s good for the entire scientific community to be listened to right now. For several years now, we’ve had the impression that confidence in scientists is eroding, whereas now there’s a recognition of the crucial contribution of several scientific disciplines to the crisis.”
Pillar Science, an essential collaboration tool
CESH’s success in continuing its work online is also due to its use of the Pillar Science platform, of which the Centre has been a customer for the past year. One of the little-talked-about issues in global research is the ability to exchange information and organize effectively. At the moment, this is all the more necessary as several countries are working hard to find a vaccine against COVID-19. And just in time, there’s a Quebec-based startup that understands the importance of coordination in research: Pillar Science.
Karim Bouayad-Gervais, the company’s president and co-founder, explains: “Today, researchers mainly use software designed for office needs, and this means that research work remains in silos rather than being put to rapid use by the entire scientific community. The aim is to enable laboratories working on COVID-19, or any laboratory that now needs to do ‘tele-research’, to have access to a platform that will enable them today to accelerate their research so as to discover tomorrow’s innovations more quickly.”
The platform makes it possible to share the latest data, pool expertise in data analysis and share research protocols to facilitate the development of innovative methods. The vaccine against COVID-19 could be found thanks to the ingenuity of a Quebec startup!
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