Less than half of the general public in six developed nations believes that universities have been important to help the world through the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a global survey.
While the success of academic science in the development of vaccines, treatments and strategies to combat the virus has saved innumerable lives, the results of a survey of just over 6,000 people suggest that reputation benefits That accumulates universities through the pandemic can be limited.
Universities are far from sailing through a wave of popularity linked to the innovations of Covid-19-Era, only 46 percent of the general public, universities were important to address the pandemic, according to a Study of the Reputation Network of the World 100, which surveyed at least 1,000 people each in Australia, Great Britain, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States. A fifth of the respondents, said the universities had been "unimportant" in the global fight against Covid-19, while 25 percent did not make sense of the way in which higher education institutions had contributed.
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The recognition of the impact of universities did not significantly vary from one country to another, although those of Great Britain, Canada and the Netherlands were marginally more appreciated by the efforts of academics. The US respondents were the least likely to be implied.
Fiona Fox, director of the Science Media Center, which has provided expert comments from British academics on topics of Covid-19, said he was disappointed, "but was not surprised" by the findings, which , in Britain, believed that they were linked to a "compression in research communications" at the offices of the University Press.
"Many universities are doing an incredibly important work, but they did not have the ability to adequately shouting the beams about this investigation," said Fox. Googleg.cmd.push (function () Googleg .Display ("DFP-AD-Article_in_Article"););
While it was inevitable that certain universities with specialists in infectious diseases, such as the University of Oxford and Imperial College London, would claim a large proportion of advertising, their investment in press officers dedicated to scientific communication was still significant, she added . \ "The press offices have been very busy with internal quotes, reputation management or social networks and do not have space for a science press officer.
" said that, we sometimes hear that the Press Officers can not talk to us, because they are busy writing things for the internal website, even if it is not clear who is reading it. "
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Robert Dingwall, who founded the Institute of Science and society at the University of Nottingham in Britain, affirmed that the perception of students As coronavirus spreaders, any appreciation of academics efforts may have killed.
"It has vanished a little now, but there was a lot of tension between universities and local communities about the students who carried the plague to cities and t the hen propagated it due to their careless life," said Dingwall, Now based on the University of Nottingham Trent, who called this a "new resource for long-standing conflicts, but it was another reason for universities to adopt a low profile."
