Keywords

Introduction

The turmoil brought on by the pervasive COVID-19 outbreak began in January 2020. The unforeseeable public health emergency affected the academic routine of the higher education (HE) sector, institutions, and academics (Jung et al., 2021). HE has undergone a rapid and unplanned transition from presential to online teaching and added a layer of complexity to the management of institutions and teams (He & Wei, 2021). The transformation in HE has led to a constant re-strategizing and re-adaptation of individual career agendas, scholarly communications, collaborations, and outputs under a new regime of uncertainty (Yang, 2020). The pandemic has also brought about an evolving disturbance of set working routines and goals (Bavel et al., 2020; Kumar, 2020). During this time, academics have been subject to stress deriving from new work and living arrangements, including partial or whole day parenting (Mavin & Yusupova, 2020; Yildirim & Eslen-Ziya, 2020), adjustment to brand-new teaching modes (Gamage et al., 2020; García-Morales et al., 2021), emotional instability from convoluted work expectations (Choi et al., 2020), new routines and goals, and often social isolation (Jung et al., 2021). Academics in mainland China and Hong Kong were the first to be confronted with the unparalleled challenges and unknowns brought on by the pandemic. However, studies related to academics based in mainland China and Hong Kong during COVID-19, despite being relevant and informative, have so far been mostly based on personal observation and reflective writing (e.g., Jung et al., 2021; Yang, 2020).

This chapter addresses this knowledge gap by reporting on a study aimed at identifying the thoughts and actions of a number of individual academics in mainland China and Hong Kong during the pandemic. The findings and conclusions of the study were based on empirical data and lay a foundation for regional studies on the academic profession during emergencies (e.g., pandemic outbreaks and natural disasters). A qualitative approach was employed in the study, with semi-structured interviews conducted with academics in a range of career stages and disciplinary fields. The study examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the routine practices of academics and delved into the ways in which they thought about, and chose to deal with, the challenge of uncertainty and the unexpected crisis. The study zeroed in on the thinking and agency of individual academics in adapting to a new scholarly environment at the meso level (i.e., the university in risk management mode; e.g., Jung et al., 2021) and navigating through the social norms imposed by public policy to prevent the propagation of the pandemic that has constrained individual agency at all levels. The study was guided by two major research questions:

  • What were the major issues affecting the work of academics in mainland China and Hong Kong during the initial COVID-19 outbreaks and lockdowns?

  • How have academics in the two regions strategically coped with the COVID-19 pandemic and continued with their academic work?

The Mainland China and Hong Kong Context in a Nutshell

Following the pandemic outbreak in December 2019, the Chinese government shut down all the universities across the country in order to contain the transmission of the virus. Thereupon, an emergency policy named ‘Suspending Classes without Stopping Learning’ was launched for the continuation of teaching activities (Yang, 2020), with the delivery of all courses shifting from presential to online (Altbach & de Wit, 2020). Academics and students were denied access to the campus, which affected their ability to access and use research and pedagogic resources. Academics were faced with unprecedented challenges that included a sudden ‘new normality’ of online teaching (He & Wei, 2021) and campus closure (Mok et al., 2021), for which they were not prepared. Furthermore, they faced a lack of timely information and complicated working surroundings, often in home settings populated by other family members (Gabster et al., 2020; Górska et al., 2021). This situation prevailed until the third quarter of 2020 (the first semester of the 2020–2021 academic year) when universities around the nation were able to resume presential teaching as a result of the effective control against COVID-19, enforced by strict control of traffic in and out of campus (Yang, 2020).

The experience Hong Kong gained in 2003 with the SARS outbreak allowed it to address the COVID-19 outbreak much quicker this time. Hong Kong was one of the first places to detect the possible threat posed by COVID-19 after the first few confirmed cases in Wuhan, and the government and the HE system reacted immediately by stipulating that people must wear face masks. People complied quickly since they were aware of the consequences of a previous pandemic (SARS in 2003). The border between mainland China and Hong Kong came under strict control immediately after the large-scale outbreak of the pandemic right after the Lunar New Year. From February 4, 2020, all inbound travelers arriving in Hong Kong from mainland China were required to undergo a compulsory 14-day quarantine period. As Hong Kong is a regional education and knowledge hub, both the higher education institutions (HEIs) and individual academics in Hong Kong rely on cross-border collaboration and communication with the mainland and overseas scholars (Lo & Tang, 2017; Mok, 2015). The temporary travel restrictions hampered cross-border mobility and collaborative processes. Presential classes, in the meantime, were replaced by online teaching in the second semester of the 2019–2020 academic year, with all teaching, learning, and assessment activities shifted to online. There are a large number of both international academics and students in Hong Kong, and some of them were trapped in different parts of the world due to travel restrictions and changes in entry policies (Mok et al., 2021). For the most part, academics were able to return, although they had to endure quarantine of different durations and modes, while some students were stuck abroad, having to conclude their studies in their countries of origin. Since the first semester of the 2020–2021 academic year, due to the improving state of public health in Hong Kong, universities incrementally adopted hybrid teaching modes consisting of both online and face-to-face teaching activities. Presential teaching returned to the majority of universities’ courses in the first semester of 2021–2022, albeit supported in some cases by the recording of classes.

Method

Participants

This study adopted a qualitative research design within the framework of thematic analysis, with empirical data collected from semi-structured interviews. A total of 33 academics were recruited from 16 research-intensive universities in mainland China (n = 17) and Hong Kong (n = 16). Of the 16 case universities, 9 were located in the mainland and 7 in Hong Kong. The characteristics of the participants were varied to ensure that the broadest scope of information could be gathered from them (Elliott, 2020). Seven of the participants were females and 26 were males. Academics in different career stages were interviewed: ranging from those in early-career positions, such as lecturers, research associates, research assistant professors, and assistant professors, to those in senior academic positions, such as associate professors and full professors. These academics were carrying out scholarly activities in diverse disciplines such as business, media, and social sciences (typical ‘soft-applied’ disciplines) and medicine, public health, Chinese medicine, and computer science, among others (typical ‘hard-applied’ disciplines) (Becher & Trowler, 2001). Detailed, descriptive information about the participants is shown in Table 12.1.

Table 12.1 Participants’ profiles (n = 33)
Full size table

Procedure

Interview data was collected and analyzed through purposive and theoretical sampling from July to December 2020, subsequent to the ‘normalization’ of academic work in the two regions. The authors tried their utmost to collect face-to-face interview data, but it was only possible to conduct seven interviews this way. Because of delays due to travel restrictions, compulsory quarantine policies, and participants’ concerns about their personal health, the rest of the interviews (n = 26) were conducted online via Zoom and VooV Software. The interviews lasted from 30 minutes up to 2 hours, depending on the time availability of the participants. All the dialogues were audiotaped with the approval of the participants. Participants were interviewed in their preferred language, either English or Mandarin Chinese. The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim after completion, with those conducted in Mandarin Chinese translated into English. The authors kept reflexive memos concurrently, mostly drafted shortly after the interviews. Moreover, relevant documentation on the institutional arrangements and policies placed in practice were reviewed as supplementary material to cross-check information that the interviewees may have provided. This allowed the authors to validate the interview data and also to better contextualize the constraints placed on academic work. Considering the largely exploratory nature of qualitative methods and the study’s research aim, thematic analysis was implemented to guide the research design, data collection, and data analysis since the aim was to identify processes that had not, or may not have, been thoroughly pinpointed.

Data Analysis

The data analysis procedure followed the framework of thematic analysis (Yin, 2010) to examine the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the coping mechanisms among academics. Nvivo Software (version 12) was adopted as the tool for data coding to identify the themes of how participants were responding to the pandemic. The content of the interviews associated with the research objective was coded. After the initial round of coding, more than 200 coding categories emerged. During the analysis section, all the codes were revisited, filtered, and organized, with three most repeated themes appearing: (1) challenges, (2) opportunities, and (3) coping strategies, as shown in Fig. 12.1.

Fig. 12.1
3 tree diagrams. 1. Challenges include ongoing projects and research agendas, student supervision, and distractions. 2. Opportunities include new scope and insights, self-improvement, and family relations. 3. Coping strategies include changing priorities, seeking alternatives, and managing emotions.

Theme chart

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Results

In the following sections, the descriptions of the three themes emerging from the data (challenges, opportunities, and coping strategies) and the categories under each theme are expounded.

Challenges

Challenges, the first theme emerging from the data analysis, referred to the challenges to the routine research of academics that were sparked off by the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants widely acknowledged that their academic research had been negatively affected to varying degrees. A total of 27 participants (82%) shared their experiences or perceptions of the manifold challenges that hindered their routine research work. The theme was manifested through three categories: (1) ongoing projects and research agendas; (2) student supervision; and (3) distractions.

Ongoing Projects and Research Agendas

The hampering of ongoing projects and research agendas were the most frequently mentioned challenges faced by participants (76%) in both the mainland and Hong Kong. The hindrances to research projects included suspended field surveys, closure of laboratories and deferred experiments, approaching deadlines for funding projects without proper findings to show, and the constantly delayed progress of ongoing projects. It is important to note that in mainland China, during the first semester following the initial pandemic outbreak in 2020, all academics were required to stay at home and were denied entry to the campus and laboratories by the authorities. The laboratories were closed, which challenged those academics specializing in laboratory science with no experimental site and facilities, while ongoing experiments had to be canceled mid-way leading to the loss of scientific progress in some projects. One participant stated: “During the pandemic, there was a while when we were forbidden to enter the lab. Not being able to go to the lab, if you are experiment-centered, then you will be in a state of stagnation for some time without data” (P31, Civil Engineering, Male, Associate Professor, Mainland).

The same measures were not applied in Hong Kong. Academics in the territory continued to carry out experiments in the laboratory and research as usual since the local government did not implement a work-from-home policy. However, they faced a different type of challenge: a large proportion of graduate students, particularly PhDs, in Hong Kong universities are non-locals, many originating from mainland China, and they were unable to return to Hong Kong during the pandemic. The challenge for Hong Kong academics was not that they could not work in their laboratories, but rather that they did not have the human resources they usually had to help them in laboratory research, as plainly expressed by a local participant: “The challenge is that maybe more than half of my students are not in Hong Kong” (P22, Computer Science, Female, Assistant Professor, Hong Kong).

For participants from hard-applied disciplines, the commonly seen obstacles were the closure of laboratories, staff shortages, delayed delivery of experiment equipment, materials and samples, interrupted biological population studies, and suspension of cross-border collaborations. Two participants noted their hindered research progression during the COVID-19 pandemic as follows:

I used to do clinical trials. During the COVID-19 outbreak, everyone was under compulsory quarantine at home. All the clinical trials were suspended. My original plan was to finish the clinical trials of 100 patients by March 2020, but now I’ve only got 60. I couldn’t conduct clinical trials during those months. Fortunately, in July and August, I was able to resume doing clinical trials again. (P7, Chinese Medicine, Male, Professor, Mainland)

In fact, the influence has been tremendous. During the outbreak, I was ordering experimental apparatus, which was supposed to be delivered by February or March. However, the apparatus arrived only in August. Just think, if the apparatus was not there, how could we do experiments? The overall progress of the research becomes much slower. Up till now, the apparatus was just installed. We haven’t adjusted and tested it yet and cannot use it right now. Furthermore, the students have not come back yet, and there is no way to carry out experiments. (P15, Environmental Engineering, Female, Research Assistant Professor, Mainland)

Similarly, participants from the ‘soft-applied’ disciplines mentioned research-related challenges, including the suspension of field research, interrupted research agendas, and the inability to do face-to-face interviews. Two academics indicated that delayed research progress and the deferral of initial research agenda goals were central challenges they encountered:

We cannot do it (field research). So, we waited. Right after the lockdown of Beijing was lifted in June, we headed to our research site in another city. However, not until we were back. There was a second wave of the outbreak in Beijing. Our university asked us to stay at home. From June 13th or 14th, till early July, the second was over. The whole research was postponed. Until now, we haven’t completed it yet. Because we started late, which was in mid-July. We were badly affected. At this moment, we can only apply for an extension from the funding sector, to spare us a few more months. (P19, Sociology, Female, Associate Professor, Mainland)

I think the most vital impact for me is not being able to go to the United States. This is the biggest impact. I have set up my research agendas for the upcoming one to two years. However, all the plans have been messed up. The trip is deferred. I finished my PhD thesis in 2014. […] My plan for the US trip is to transfer my thesis into English publications in a year and communicate more with the scholars out there. (P14, Media, Male, Associate Professor, Mainland)

Student Supervision

More than one-third of the participants (39%) indicated that, during the pandemic, student supervision had become a thorny problem. Students’ physical condition, the progress of data collection, and the timeline for graduation troubled them. As one participant revealed, student supervision had become more challenging: “The project discussion and guidance are all carried out remotely, which heavily relies on the students’ self-discipline and initiative” (P22, Computer Science, Female, Assistant Professor, Hong Kong).

Among the participants who expressed their concerns about student supervision, a few were worried that their students would not be able to graduate on time. One participant stated:

Currently, there are two PhD students under my supervision. For one of them, I haven’t seen him since the early beginning of the semester. He is in the mainland at the moment and is instructed by me online. His research project cannot be carried out. All he can do right now is to take some courses. And he doesn’t have any substantive research output. Another student is in a similar condition as you. She is about to collect data. Focusing on population studies, when schools are closed, there is nothing she can do. Right now, it is possible for her to extend her study. We are trying to see if there is an alternative in mainland China to continue her research. (P5, Sports and Health, Female, Associate Professor, Hong Kong)

Distractions

A large proportion of participants (42%), both in the mainland and in Hong Kong, indicated that they were plagued by various distractions resulting from the COVID-19 crisis. These distractions included emotional instability due to uncertainty, uncontrollable working surroundings with manifold family duties such as parenting and caring for elderly family members, and an increased non-research workload such as adapting to online teaching. Emotional instability and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic were repeatedly emphasized by participants. One female participant shared her experience and disclosed her emotional fluctuation and stagnated research progress at the time:

In February (2020), I felt that everyone was worried and unsettled. Not only me, but all the people were anxious. There was too much uncertainty in the world. The pandemic outbreak reached its peak in February. Basically, for the whole month, nothing (research) was done. I paid special attention to the number of the increased cases. It was over thousands of increases per day. I discussed with my friends what would happen in the future or the coming semester. That’s all about it. I got strongly impacted in February and didn’t do any work. I had an article to write with a colleague in the US in February. He urged me to revise the article so that the article could be finalized. I put it off for two to three weeks. He asked me why I haven’t finished it. I told him that during the pandemic outbreak, I felt depressed. […] Later when there was the pandemic outbreak in the US, he knew how it felt. Right when we nearly finished the article, he told me that he felt down. The progress of our article was slower than expected. It was submitted by May. There is a mental influence. (P19, Sociology, Female, Associate Professor, Mainland)

For participants who were young parents, parenting responsibilities were a challenging task. One participant in his 60s pointed out: “It’s because of our age and life phase. We can call these benefits, if we were younger, it could be an entirely different situation (busy with parenting)” (Jack, P30, Sociology, Male, Professor, Hong Kong). Parenting duties took up much time, which diminished participants’ time devoted to routine research and to think about long-term research goals.

During the pandemic, the work efficiency at home was much lower. The biggest problem for me is that I need to take care of my children (two). There was a period before the summer vacations when our older child needed to take online courses. He needed a quiet environment. We (academics) were asked not to go to the university. I stayed at home. While I was home, I spent quite much time taking care of the children. The time for work (research) became less. I intended to work in the evening. However, my children could not stay up too late. I feel that much time (for work) has been wasted. (P1, Business, Female, Research Associate, Mainland)

A notable change engendered by the COVID-19 pandemic has been the widespread introduction of online teaching. Participants mentioned that learning and adapting to the new technologies for online teaching took up more time, with a heavier workload than that before the pandemic outbreak. Heavy online teaching duties reduced the time participants could spare for research. The tension between teaching and research, once again, troubled the participants as it had before the pandemic (Drennan, 2001; Kwiek, 2015). One participant in the mainland explained:

During COVID-19, you don’t have time to do it (conduct research and plan for research). I am haunted by the heavy online teaching pressure. With so many trivial tasks to deal with for online teaching, there is no time at all to think for others. (P6, Optoelectronic Engineering, Male, Associate Professor, Mainland)

The same participant and another in the mainland illustrated the time and effort they had put into online teaching in detail:

We have many platforms to choose from, like Blackboard. On those platforms, you have to upload all the materials from the beginning to the end by yourself, which resembles the structure of a tree. You need to update all the course requirements. Some teachers ask the students to submit assignments on the platform in pdf format. You need to spend time marking the assignments and preparing for the course materials including the assignment instructions. (P6, Optoelectronic Engineering, Male, Associate Professor, Mainland)

Talking about online teaching, I have been recording courses for the past two days. That is, I need to record the PPT and give a live lesson. […] I am teaching international students, who come from all around the world, with three major time zones. We need to discuss a time to do the live teaching together with work to record the PPT slides with audio, which is quite time-consuming. […] I feel that I spend three times longer time on teaching, for you may need to record it twice, and then do the live teaching, which has been two to three times of workload than before. (P9, Chinese Medicine, Female, Professor, Mainland)

Opportunities

Opportunities, the second theme arising from the data, referred to the opportunities identified during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may benefit academics. Slightly more than half of the participants (52%) positively highlighted novel opportunities brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. These opportunities were categorized into three overarching categories based on our data analysis: (1) new scope and insights, (2) self-improvement, and (3) family relationships.

New Scope and Insights

The COVID-19 pandemic had come to have a permanent influence on the life and routine work of academics. Some participants (46%) had an optimistic attitude despite such unfavorable circumstances. They noted that new scope and insights for research had emerged, which enlarged their research scope and assisted them in their adjustment of research agendas:

I have one research collaboration (associated with COVID-19), the one I mentioned by (a Japanese university). […] I think it had an impact, and the topic is so global across different disciplines, across countries, that may be promising for citation, because everybody, every institution is affected by that. So, I had little bit of new projects related to that. […] And you become habituated to the busy life. COVID-19 made me rethink my research agenda. And strategically speaking, but in the meantime, it’s also some deeper reflections about my academic identity, myself. I like the time of COVID-19 that way. I didn’t teach a lot last semester, and that allowed me to really focus on thinking about research and catching up with the overdue writing projects. […] Rather it’s a golden opportunity for me to do reflections. (P23, Education, Male, Assistant Professor, Hong Kong)

One noticeable phenomenon was that some of the participants had published on COVID-19-related themes after the outbreak. The publications were either COVID-19 virus research or an extension of participants’ previous work with changes related to COVID-19. One participant commented:

This is an opportunity for our profession, right? Right, I guess the global ranking of the university will increase. Because in the global COVID-19 research, the microbiology in our university ranked good. […] Firstly, that’s because we published a lot on the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a significant influence on mainland China, and even the whole world. (P33, Microbiology, Male, Professor, Hong Kong)

Self-Improvement

A small number of participants (12%) suggested that the pandemic had led them to a path of self-improvement, including self-learning, self-reflection, and independent thinking. During the period of working from home, they took the chance to reflect upon their field and professional identities, research agendas, and career trajectories. This was made possible by breaking with routine and finding time to read new literature, which triggered the formation of new interests and focus.

I think it has brought me a lot of thinking and learning. I read a lot, which facilitates my thinking and drives me to think with a broader vision. […] For me, one of the major areas I am dedicated to is the post-pandemic climate issue. […] I have never thought about it before I read those articles and reports. (P2, Business, Male, Associate Professor, Mainland)

I can stay at home and work 24/7. And then I had more time for reflection on the things that I’m working on. So instead of just running around and collecting data and teaching, I actually had the time to slow down and think of the stuff that I really want to do. And then I have a lot of time for self-learning. So, there are lots of online courses that I wanted to do in the past, but I didn’t have the time. So, for example, I learned about mindfulness. I learned about Buddhism. I learned about Buddhist psychology, and I learned about new ways of doing research, all during this closed-down period, because I had more time at home. (P32, Social Work, Male, Associate Professor, Hong Kong)

Family Relationships

A few participants (9%) mentioned the positive opportunity that the pandemic had presented to improve family relationships under the temporary ‘new normal’ of working from home. The improvements in these relationships could be of a conjugal or a parent-children nature. When staying at home, the time spent with family members increased, and for a few of the participants, this was an opportunity to improve the more personal side of their lives.

Anyway, COVID-19 has been entirely different. My experience, we’ve been in Melbourne, we’ve been in lockdown for two months. We’re just going to come out of it now. Actually, my wife and I have benefited enormously. It’s paradoxical to say, but COVID-19 and being in lockdown has been where we’re at home together, we enjoy each other’s company a lot, but we have our own offices. We have a room each in our apartment, so we work well with our working libraries at home. (P30, Sociology, Male, Professor, Hong Kong)

Well. So that’s why I feel that under this COVID-19 and work-from-home issue, actually, if you take advantage of it, it should improve the family relationship, because you see each other every single day, and you can work from home, and there’s no excuse that you can’t find time for your family members. (P32, Social Work, Male, Associate Professor, Hong Kong)

Coping Strategies

Coping Strategies, the third theme emerging from the empirical data in this study, referred to the strategic responses of participants to the challenges or negative influence of COVID-19. A large number (70%) of participants mentioned coping strategies. The data suggested that these coping strategies could be categorized into three clusters: (1) changing priorities, (2) seeking alternatives, and (3) managing emotions.

Changing Priorities

Changing priorities of work emerged as a major category on the theme Coping Strategies based on coded data. The pandemic had held back progress in routine research, affecting data collection or other research conditions. Almost half of the participants (42%) employed strategies to accomplish doable tasks first and shelve the hindered work at hand temporarily, to be completed at a later stage when conditions permitted. As one participant working in mainland China stated:

It can be explained as changing priorities. Because I have another project at hand. I stopped that project to work on online teaching and another project associated with the pandemic. […] I am concerned about the suspended project. The project was supposed to be accomplished at the end of the year. I feel anxious about it. (P8, Media, Female, Professor, Mainland)

During the COVID-19 crisis, priorities were often shifted to paperwork or reading, which do not demand research conditions or surroundings. Some common types of paperwork incorporated grand proposal writing and research output writing (e.g., journal articles, book chapters, and books). As one participant, also based in mainland China, put it:

For quite a long time, the university has not allowed us to enter and do experiments. I can only stay at home and wait. Meanwhile, read some journal articles. The experiments came to a standstill. That period was the exact time to apply for the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). Normally, the deadline for NSFC was in mid-March. This year, the deadline was extended to mid-April. The number of applications was particularly high, which, in my opinion, was due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The academics could not do experiments. As a result, everyone was writing projects to be submitted. (P10, Mechanics Engineering, Male, Research Assistant Professor, Mainland)

In the context of the temporary shift to paperwork, the duty of peer-reviewing for journals increased correspondingly. One of the participants noted, “Work like this type (review of thesis and local publications) just came, as well as (international publication) peer review through the internet” (P9, Chinese Medicine, Female, Professor, Mainland).

Seeking Alternatives

Seeking alternatives, including changing the focus of research, and adapting plans to undertake research projects and make up for the missing conditions, was the second category of the theme Coping Strategies adopted by the participants during the COVID-19 pandemic. One-third of the participants (33%) reported using this strategy to cope with the challenges and unexpected changes resulting from the pandemic. One participant noted her alternative to face-to-face communication: “Now the meetings are shifted online. Right now, I participate in various online meetings and discussions, which have been the alternative (to face-to-face communication)” (P1, Business, Female, Research Associate, Mainland).

Shifting the research focus to COVID-19-associated themes and directions was a typical alternative to suddenly undoable research projects. As one of the participants based in Hong Kong stated, “Right now, half of the research work in our team centers around COVID-19 on directions like vaccinations, treatment mechanism, immunologic mechanism, etc.” (P33, Microbiology, Male, Professor, Hong Kong).

The participants were found to be flexible pandemic crisis adapters, who had embraced flexibility and actively sought alternatives during the period of the uncertainty. One of the male participants from a soft-applied field suggested:

Well, I guess, no, we have to embrace flexibility. So, if we can’t get the so-called randomized control trial data, we just have to live with getting, for example, case-controlled data, things like that. And obviously, that impacts the research output. But I hope that people will understand that during the COVID-19 period things are different. (P32, Social Work, Male, Associate Professor, Hong Kong)

One participant from a ‘hard-applied’ discipline also stated:

There are various types of papers. As you know, there are research papers with data. If you really don’t have any data at hand. Then you can turn to review papers. You can compile previous read literature. […] Or like what I’ve mentioned, if you want to change a direction, or get exposed to a brand-new field, you can take the chance to read more, papers, literature, and get to know more. Anyway, there is always something for you to do. (P31, Civil Engineering, Male, Associate Professor, Mainland)

Managing Emotions

Managing emotions was a common coping strategy adopted by participants in responding to unanticipated crises and reducing their unfavorable influences on routine research and individual mental status. Managing emotions through the individual effort by focusing on emotions that served them or benefited them and accepting emotions that exerted a negative influence on them was an emotional protection mechanism used by participants. One participant shared his experience of self-adjustment to the flux of emotions:

There definitely is (a mental impact). You will feel repulsion from it. When you go out to see the scenes (during the COVID-19 outbreak, people being hospitalized, or kept at home), you will be in a bad mood. Right now, during the pandemic, everyone stays in a place for too long, which will unavoidably affect your mental status. You may feel troubled by depression. I think this is unavoidable. […] So, I composed myself. I don’t complain much. At first, you may feel in a bad mood. But you cannot do anything with it. Just focus on your work. (P17, Economics and Finance, Male, Assistant Professor, Hong Kong)

In general, participants went to great lengths to minimize the negative effects of the pandemic and cope with the crisis effectively. Most believed that the effect of COVID-19 was likely to be short-lived, but many conjectured that it might also become part of a ‘new normal’, directly affecting scholarly work routines. Either way, participants quickly identified the main challenges presented by COVID-19 and sought ways to meet these challenges. They managed to find opportunities arising from the disruptive phenomenon, and many quickly came up with coping strategies to move their research forward, sometimes in creative ways. This highlights the adaptative nature of academics in an age of increasing uncertainty, competition, transformation, and fast-paced dynamics in academia (Siekkinen et al., 2020).

Discussion and Conclusion

The findings of this study indicated that the participants in mainland China and Hong Kong had mixed views about the impact of the pandemic on their academic work and on their lives. The first view was mostly negative. According to this view, the outbreak had a detrimental influence on daily academic life and resulted in challenges that hindered routine research work. The second view was more positive and pinpointed the opportunities the pandemic had brought to the development of the participants as professionals, their families, and their academic work, most notably research. The three core themes: challenges, opportunities, and coping strategies, as demonstrated in the analysis, are largely related to the progress of academic research, emerging and reassessed research directions or topics, and research resource acquisition (such as research funding).

All these findings echoed the findings of earlier studies on HE and the academic profession in mainland China and Hong Kong. Against the backdrop of a mostly (research-driven) internationalization of HE, universities in mainland China have actively undertaken managerial reforms centered on new promotion and assessment systems that have created regimes of ultra-competition, anxiety, and uncertainty (Huang et al., 2018; Xie, 2018). Since scholarly work had been disrupted during the pandemic, feelings of competitive stress and uncertainty, and the need to deliver, were heightened during the pandemic. Some of the participants felt depressed because they could not access their data and were not able to collaborate with international co-authors in the effective way they desired. The interview quote, cited earlier, where the mental difficulties brought about by the pandemic are highlighted, shows the pressure to coauthor and continue to work in a stressful condition; however, the effort had to be made. Other participants pushed on regardless of the conditions and the cards that they had been dealt due to the changing conditions. Research on academic pressure in China points out that the tenure track system places a strong emphasis on the international collaboration and publication drives of academics (Tian & Lu, 2017). Universities in Hong Kong, likewise, target a stronger global impact and benchmarks with top universities around the world—with an increasing requirement for academics to engage in more international research and maintain a high quality of research and teaching (Li & Li, 2022)—at the same time, engaging in professional and community services (Mok, 2005; Postiglione & Jung, 2017). Academics in Hong Kong are confronted with more stringent assessments, higher benchmarks, the norm of competitive academic working culture, and fiercer competition for resources (Horta et al., 2019). The pressure to continue to do research and move research agendas forward mentioned by the participants in both mainland China and Hong Kong was demonstrative of such a competitive environment, even if a few of the academics were able to ‘disconnect’ from their daily routines and reflect on their careers and research topics. These were in the minority though. The impact of the pandemic did not, and is not expected to, change the dynamics of competition, collaboration, internationalization, and the need to produce outputs. Academic work and environments in both mainland China and Hong Kong are expected to continue to be characterized by the need for academics of all genders, ages, academic fields, and HEIs to publish and obtain grants (Li & Xue, 2021). Evidence of research production and research visibility, in particular, are critical to career progression and attainment of tenure in both jurisdictions, as it is in most countries (Pietilä & Pinheiro, 2021).

The responses of individual participants to the pandemic mirrored the importance attached by academics and the HE system, including HEIs, to specific issues. Most participants reported increases in research productivity during the COVID-19 pandemic, with more journal articles submitted. A few even mentioned the growing peer-review workload. In line with recent research on academic publications during the COVID-19 pandemic, a quicker peer-review process has been put into practice in medical publishing (Whitmore et al., 2020) and other disciplinary fields, apparently induced by the submission craze, urgent need for knowledge creation related to COVID-19, and the shortage of peer reviewers. Some participants expressed their concerns about this phenomenon and appealed for a more rigorous review process (see Kambakamba et al., 2020; Kittler et al., 2020). The pandemic had heightened the problematic situation of increasing submissions to journals and the stress placed on reviewers. In this context, it is worthwhile to think and reflect on the future of academic publication processes: will the quick review process be a transient change due to the pandemic, or will it reshape academic publications in the long run? Another issue reflected upon by participants with regard to the increasing number of publications was the long discussed ‘publish or perish’ adage. With the increasing level of global competitiveness in knowledge production, ‘publish or perish’ has become a product of the global trend dominating academia, with HE systems setting policies to enhance research productivity and academics abiding by the rules (Aprile et al., 2020). Even though excessive competition has generally been acknowledged to be harmful, academics abide by the mechanism (Doyle & Cuthill, 2015; Yeo et al., 2022). During the pandemic outbreak, the situation has been exacerbated. Participants, whether senior or early career newcomers, adopted divergent coping strategies to lower the negative impact on research progression and ensure continual academic outputs. Actions that aggravated competition caused anxiety among participants who were early-career academics about a possible rougher and more rugged academic path (Aprile et al., 2020; Ortlieb & Weiss, 2018; Yeo et al., 2022).

The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 had a great impact on HE systems and institutions, as well as on individual academics. The ‘normal’ of routine work including research and teaching was being replaced by a generalized ‘new normal’ as a result of the pandemic outbreak. The findings highlight the major challenges that participants faced during COVID-19, as they were haunted by uncertainty and hampered by the work-from-home policy and travel restrictions. Our study suggests that out of the challenges triggered by COVID-19, opportunities also emerged and were seized on by more than half of the participants, including new scope and insights for research, self-improvement, and family relations improvement. Participants from both ‘hard-applied’ and ‘soft-applied’ disciplines from both jurisdictions welcomed emerging research themes and opportunities brought about by the pandemic. Only tenured participants mentioned self-improvement outside academic life, an expected finding since a decrease in scholarly motivation and drive can occur for some academics after they have obtained tenure (Bozeman & Gaughan, 2011; Schmalz et al., 2019). The participants who mentioned and addressed concerns about family relations during the pandemic were mostly male. This is surprising since both mainland China and Hong Kong are dominated by patriarchal-oriented cultures, where males are expected to be breadwinners, devoting less time to parenting and child rearing, which are more the responsibility of females as homemakers (Kenny, 2018; Tang & Horta, 2021). It may be that the male participants working from home realized the challenges of raising and educating children, and the importance of a life-work balance. This may be part of a trend that is evolving in mainland China in particular, where work-life balance seems to be increasingly sought by highly qualified people, particularly the younger generation (Lin, 2020). The extent to which this represents a discontinuity or not is hard to predict at this point, but it is likely that the current competitive environment in HE settings in both mainland China and Hong Kong will push academics to focus mainly on their careers and academic work. This study also shows the adaptability and malleability that some academics have when responding to crises. The elevated level of individual resilience buffers negative effects of stress encountered during the pandemic (Chan et al., 2021; Katsikopoulos, 2021). Some participants coped better than others with the challenges they faced, but all were able to find ways to persevere, and in a few cases, thrive.