In a time like this, if people can't go out into the field, to their labs, etc., to collect the data they need for research, does that affect how and even if their research can continue? Is research and experiments scrapped or can people publish paper with huge gaps in their data with footnotes that say "Data missing for months XYZ, due to inability to collect?"
I can only speak about the situation in my field. I think everyone is fine for the next 1-2 months as there is enough data to analyze, stuff to read, articles/reviews/chapters/grant applications to write. After the two months things will start hitting the fan. I am officially in home office starting from today. Our lab is down to 15%. So some people are "chosen ones" that are allowed to continue working on a 50% shift because those are the closest to a publication. PhD candidates stay at home and postdocs continue working, in out case. You cannot publish papers with gaps. I actually expect much more articles to be sent in during this phase because people have to stop running and start to think about what they are actually doing. This all changes if this continues for more then a few months.
Because you won't be able to make a point. It just goes against the whole point of scientific peer review and the way we do science. You would basically increase the irreproducibility from its current 50-60% to 90% because everyone was playing wishful thinking just to not be able to get the results they wanted at the end. And then you would have to retract everything. Except, no one would do that. So the thing they will do is twist that story until it shows what they want to show. Leading to very bad quality data. This starts a chain that could fuck science for another decade because people will build hypothesis on them, apply to grants etc. and since everything takes so long nowadays, you will lose 5-10 years of "for nothing" data. A recent example from my field of research. We got a paper to review from Science. We check the paper, the quality is garbage, the analysis is horrible. Why that fuck does Science send us the paper for review? Turns out it is from a famous lab in the states (ivy league). We write a very long review giving suggestions for improvement and data analysis. Paper is rejected in Science and turns up 5 months later in Neuron. A respectable journal in my field. Unaltered. None of the suggestions implemented. Zero. The results and conclusions of the paper are worth nothing. However, we just got a grant proposal to review from another lab basing their whole hypothesis on the results from that one paper. Luckily, we were able to tell the poor guy that the paper is problematic. But many others won't have our experience or would just believe the paper. A few millions in research investments later, all of it was a fluke. OR they would also twist the data to the point that they agreed with the paper from Neuron. Because it is Neuron and so on and so forth. Usually, trends like that die out because there will be enough reports going against them. However, the game changes if you have much much more of those cases with data that has "gaps" or "filled gaps" where squares are pushed into circles just to get the same conclusion because the authors fear retractions. The damage would be insane.
I'm a PhD student in a small social science lab. We've had to stop collecting data on an experiment we are in the middle of, but the nature of the experiment means we can resume data collection once (if?) things get back to normal. The director of the lab sent out an email letting everyone know that he is not smiles times. But what can you do? We just can't justify exposing research participants to a dangerous virus. Fortunately the PhDs in the lab have a lot of data from an experiment we ran last year to analyze. The PhD candidates are using this time to work on their dissertations. The other PhD student and I are focusing on coursework. Plus I'm trying to apply for scholarships to summer programs that may or may not happen. So that's fun. The big worry for my lab is timing on grants. Right not we have a grant from the Army, and next month we need to send them a report showing our progress on the research they funded. It is generally bad form to send a report that says we are not making progress. Doing that can influence your chances of getting future grants. It is not clear how their research office will deal with the COVID-19 pandemic when reviewing reports. But here's hoping they are understanding because my spot in this lab/PhD program is funded by those grants.
I can speak to this a bit: - All research institutions have some experience of shut down periods (think Christmas and New Year). On the other hand, the unprecedented scale of this obviously means there's some level of people working things out as they go along. - Identifying what research programs and research infrastructure are essential and must be maintained (i.e. don't go unplugging the tank of liquid nitrogen or the embryo freezer). - Identifying a smaller crew of essential staff and ensuring they will have access during a lockdown (somebody needs to monitor stuff and feed the animals). - Providing support for researchers to identify and continue to undertake what research they are able to from home. - It's important that the centre gives the different organisational units enough lead to work out for themselves what needs to be done, provided there's a record of all operations going to the centre. - Maintaining open discussion with external research partners about what's going on. - There will be a big dive in some data over coming months. On the other hand, there will be tremendous wealth of data in other areas. Think pedestrian traffic, internet traffic, monitoring of domestic violence rates, etc.
It depends on the nature of the experiment. If the scientific goals of your studies require something like manually making contiguous daily measurements out in the field, yeah, sucks. But it's more disruptive than that. There's a lot of grad students running labs that require specialized orders of supplies, and those supply lines are certainly not getting designated "essential". Even though it doesn't matter what time of the day/week/month they perform their experiments, they can't do much of anything, at the moment. I'll bet the liquid nitrogen supply is deemed essential, at least. Many labs require it. Then there's the luckiest person ever born, me. My lab is in space, and our experiment is givin' space the bidness as I type these very words. Our project operations aren't disrupted at all. But no scientific conferences this year. Mixed emotions for me on that one. The overall pace of research will contract a bit, giving me the upper hand... bwah ha ha ha haa haaaaa