Social work research and COVID-19

This chapter considers the upheaval in research production and dissemination caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It describes the ways social work scholars endeavoured to collect, describe, and interpret data on what happened in an extraordinary situation, with the dual aim of providing knowledge to address immediate needs as well as facilitate future learning. The chapter illustrates how, beyond its dramatic impact, the pandemic opened new avenues for scholarship, through the use of technology, changes in working conditions, and a sense of sharing a common event which facilitated new partnerships in the development of global knowledge. After a review of the disruptions necessitated by COVID-19, the chapter considers four overall effects on research development and dissemination and illustrates them with three examples drawn from international empirical research projects. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the position of the researcher, considering how investigators can support new approaches in complex situations, through ‘new parity’ in the relation between researchers and subjects researched.