An Update on the State of Science 2022: What Scientists Want and Predict
SUMMARY
In early 2022, we surveyed scientists to understand their mindset and scientific priorities. Given the recent changes in global economy and as we continue in the Next Normal, we checked back in to see what’s changed, what hasn’t, and what scientists tell us about the remainder of the year.
Almost half of respondents expect their productivity to be somewhat or significantly higher than prior to the pandemic.
Finding new collaborations was a priority for the rest of the year, followed by investments in AI and new/novel datasets.
Scientists are still burdened by reproducibility and inconclusive data from their experiments.
Over one-third of our respondents still plan to make major technology purchases in the remaining months of 2022.
The State of Science continues to evolve
At the beginning of 2022, we surveyed a cohort of researchers, and professionals from North America and Western Europe to capture and understand their mindset and scientific priorities. Halfway through the year and with major shifts in the global productivity and economic changes, we wanted to check in to see how their mindsets have evolved and priorities have changed.
For our latest State of Science update, we surveyed 133 scientists on their productivity, priorities and barriers to evaluate how their mindsets have changed through an online survey mechanism.
About our respondents
This survey is composed mainly of scientists and researchers from North America and Europe. About one-third (29%) of respondents work in biopharma research and development, another 20% respondents work in an academic research setting, another 17% in pharmaceutical research or development, with the remaining working at hospitals and non-therapeutic biotechnology. .
Of those who work in a university setting, nearly two thirds (71%) are at medium and large universities with enrollments ranging between 5,000-30,000 students. For respondents who work in research organizations, half of them are at medium and large (100-10,000 employees) companies. Nearly half (45%) of all respondents consider their position a research role while 25% are in corporate or administrative positions.
Scientific Priorities
To understand which techniques or applications will be most impactful to their work in 2022, we asked respondents to rank the ones they believe will make the most significant contribution to their research. Much like the first half of 2022, scientists believe CRISPR/cell line engineering, machine learning or AI-enabled bioinformatics, and third generation sequencing will make the most significant contributions to scientific advancement in the next year.
In comparison to our early 2022 data, scientists said the top three priorities were (1) CRISPR/cell-line engineering, (2) multi-omics investigations, (3) machine learning or AI-enabled bioinformatics.
In the last six months, the potential contribution for scientific advancement from third-gen sequencing (or high accuracy, long-read, or 5-base sequencing) has significantly risen.
At AGBT in June, several genomics companies made announcements progressing the third-gen sequencing field — whether that be instruments with significantly lower error rates or claims for the $100 genome.
Regarding priorities for the latter half of the year, 60% of respondents chose adopting new technologies as one of their top three priorities, closely followed by over half (52%) prioritizing finding new collaborations.
Where in early 2022, finding new collaborations was not a widespread priority, this increase in prioritization could signal a shift in the market’s sentiment around shared technologies and expertise. This rise in the need for collaboration may indicate scientists are looking for ways to add different types of data into their investigations, and increase their scientific productivity without the need to make major technology purchases or the need for additional expertise. For life science tools providers, the opportunity lies in leveraging the rise of productivity and partnership as a way to increase usage of already-installed base systems and even brokering such collaboration.
Technology Purchases
In this latest survey, we found that some scientists (35%) are still planning on purchasing new technology. Over ⅔ of respondents said they will not be purchasing new technology for the remainder of 2022, which represents, almost a complete flip from earlier 2022 where 63% of respondents said they did plan to purchase new technology.
For those who are not planning on purchasing technology, the reasons range from a lack of funding, that they already purchased new technology, or that there is no current need at their organization.
Measuring Productivity
Using pre-pandemic 2019 as a baseline for productivity, we have been measuring fluctuations in perceived productivity from the onset of the pandemic and onward — from the Initial Shock to transition to (eventually) adapting to the Next Normal.
In our early 2022 survey, over a third (39%) of respondents estimated an increase in their productivity for the year. This sentiment has remained nearly the same now, with 44% of respondents reporting that they expect their productivity to be significantly or somewhat higher, and another third (34%) reporting that it will be about the same as pre-pandemic levels of productivity. Only less than a quarter (23%) of respondents predict their productivity will be significantly or somewhat lower than 2019.
Overall, productivity seems to be affected by changes in roles at organizations, remote work, and the pandemic.
Scientists who are predicting that they will be somewhat more productive in 2022 believe it is mostly due to professional efficiencies such as having more experience, changes in their role, or remote work. As far as those who predict their productivity will be somewhat lower, they largely blame external factors such as supply chain status, FDA and regulatory communications, and changes in levels of internal interactions.
Productivity is less about generating more data, and more about meeting milestones. People are thinking about working smarter and making progress.
Barriers
Much like earlier in 2022 reproducibility continues to be the biggest barrier in life science, with 43% of respondents ranking this as the top barrier followed by experiments that lead to inconclusive results (27%), a lack of standardization (27%), and supply chain issues among scientific instruments or reagents (27%).
This data signals that what has plagued scientific research in the past still plagues progress now and in the future.
Three Critical Factors
As scientists and decision makers continue to plan for the remainder of the year and for 2023, there are three critical factors to consider:
Scientists are prioritizing making progress on their work.
They are looking to derive better understanding in their studies and combatting complexity. This is why they are investing heavily in AI and seeking collaborations.
They may be pivoting away from measuring the value of each experiment or data point to maximize the value of each sample.