When your lab is the world but the world is closed down – Social Science Research in times of Covid-19 Stay at home. This sentence has become a common mantra for all of us during the last weeks. Most of my academic colleagues and friends are among the lucky ones who can actually stay at home and do not need to go to work.

[In this pandemic, researchers have responded by publishing results rapidly, often through preprints.]{style=“background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”} [In fact, up to half of the publications in Europe PMC on COVID-19 are preprints rather than peer-reviewed journal articles.

Introduction As the novel coronavirus continues to spread around the world in the spring of 2020, several European governments have started to implement severe measures such as physical distancing or the closure of local commerce in order to slow down the spread of the virus. But governments have also called on science and academia to join forces to bring together expertise, knowledge and technological resources.

Together with your colleagues Ruth Mayer and Andrea Geier you initiated the petition “Nicht-Semester” (calling for a cancellation of the regular spring semester during the Corona crisis). What are the motivations behind your initiative? Our main argument is that we should see the current situation in higher education in Germany from a realistic perspective –

Mafalda Sandrini Some days ago, a friend of mine told me that while she was grocery shopping, a 60 to 70 years old man shouted at her because she was wearing a mask. She was shocked: how could the man not understand she wanted to protect him? “I could be a weapon to him”, she told me. My friend, as far as she knows, did not have the COVID-19 disease, but she claimed she could not know for sure.

As I’m writing this, on Easter 2020, the big wave of COVID-19 infections spreads as a slow-motion tsunami over our planet, wreaking havoc in many families, communities and businesses all over the world. Knowing a thing or two about contagion dynamics, I started following this pandemic when there were still just 881 confirmed cases in Wuhan, hoping, or actually expecting an adequate response.

Introduction The current COVID-19 crisis has prompted hand-wringing and self-reflection among some museum professionals. What, they are asking, is the point of a museum that remains closed to the public? How can museums remain relevant if people can’t visit them? Can exhibitions, which take years to plan and execute, be transferred to the digital realm, in order to keep museums open virtually?

Agata Komendant-Brodowska Since covid-19 started to spread, I’ve reacted twofold. Of course, this is a huge crisis, so, on the one hand I’ve been worried, sad and scared. On the other hand, there are a lot of massive social processes happening right now in front of our eyes, almost in ‘fast forward’ mode, so I’ve also been observing what is happening as a researcher interested in social dynamics.

[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Intro” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] Tracking Open Access in times of COVID-19 Here, we measure in near time the number of publications on COVID-19 and Sars-CoV-2 and the share of Open Access publications.

Evgeny Bobrov, Open Data and Research Data Management Officer, at QUEST Center, Berlin Institute of Health (BIH), (© BIH/Thomas Rafalzyk) The COVID-19 pandemic requires swift reactions, which in turn makes the sharing of all available knowledge on the virus as quickly and as freely as possible an imperative.