CES-UC published study on pandemic and home gym

The Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra (CES-UC) recently released the results of the research project “Pandemic and Academia at home – what effects on teaching, research and career? Study on changes in the scientific and higher education system”, which was funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), under the special support “ Gender Research 4 Covid-19 ”.

The study took place between August 2020 and September 2021 and used surveys and interviews with researchers and professors from various entities linked to the national higher education and scientific system, seeking to understand the strategies for adapting to teaching and research work during the COVID-19 pandemic, by institutions and by the different groups that make up the academic body.

The team that carried out the study, coordinated by researcher Virgínia Ferreira, highlights some conclusions, specifically that: compared to men, women assumed a greater part of the effort associated with the increase in material and emotional demands of teaching/learning and academic service during this period and increased the time spent on assisting and monitoring students and on management tasks performed for the institutions; the increase in care/school support tasks associated with motherhood and fatherhood has affected the possibility of dedicating time to professional work for teachers and researchers with young children; and that higher education and research institutions assumed that creating remote working conditions was primarily an individual problem, providing limited or insufficient responses to the difficulties that each person teaching and/or researching there faced in accommodating professional and family responsibilities in the context of working from home.

In general terms, the results point to an increase in gender inequalities in the division of academic work and an increased vulnerability of teachers and researchers with young children, as well as the insufficiency of the response given by higher education institutions to the difficulties in creating conditions for remote teaching. In this sense, in addition to the full publication of the results ( here ), the team also produced a document, entitled “Policy Brief: Proposals for a More Equal Academia Post-COVID-19” , in which it proposes a set of measures for the academy to respond to the challenges and inequalities created by the pandemic crisis. For more information about this study, please visit the CES-UC website .

This was one of the 16 projects that were financed through the exceptional financing line “Gender Research 4 Covid-19”, in an initiative promoted by the FCT, in conjunction with the State Secretariat for Citizenship and Equality and the support of the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality (CIG), and aimed at supporting research projects on the impact of the health emergency caused by COVID-19 on gender inequalities and violence against women and domestic violence.