大流行如何激發新一代創作者
COVID-19 危機呼應了對第二次世界大戰的「全員參與」反應，但需要保持這種敏捷性。
資料來源：Chris Woolston / 2022 年 12 月 7 日 / 自然 / 財團法人台灣紅絲帶基金會編譯
Oxford-AstraZeneca 疫苗是緊急和迅速的合作反應之結果。圖片來源：David Levene/Guardian/eyevine
永遠不要浪費一場好的危機」，據說溫斯頓.丘吉爾曾經這樣建議。 本著這種精神，世界各地的科學家和機構利用 COVID-19 大流行來推動產品、技術和創新方法的開發。 經濟合作與發展組織 (OECD) 的經濟學家卡羅琳·保諾夫 (Caroline Paunov) 說：「它以一種獨一無二悲慘的方式，它激發了一種全新的做事方式」。「這導致了對不同思考方式的合作」。 這場危機是如此緊迫和普遍，以至於它迅速將政府、公司和研究機構聚集在一起，以實現共同利益。 但隨著大流行病的消退，這種合作意識能持續多久以及從中學到了什麼來幫助應對下一次全球危機的問題仍然存在。
疫苗是 COVID 驅動創新的最明顯例子。在大流行之前，開發一種新疫苗通常需要十年左右的時間。但在 2020 年 11 月，即 SARS-CoV-2 病毒被發現後不到一年，世界衛生組織統計了 220 種候選疫苗。 到那時，三種疫苗——由輝瑞-BioNTech、Moderna 和 Oxford-AstraZeneca 生產——已被證明在試驗中至少有 90% 的有效性。
自然指數 2022 創新
英國劍橋大學創新政策研究員 Tomas Ulrichsen 表示，疫苗的快速開發得益於異常強大的產學合作關係。 例如，Oxford-AstraZeneca 疫苗是開發原型的大學科學家與最終完成該疫苗的工業科學家之間的合作成果。「他們需要與工業合作夥伴密切合作，透過大規模的臨床試驗、製造和分銷」，Ulrichsen 說。「它確實突出了當你獲得真正的合作時可能發生的事情——每個人都為了同一個目標而緊迫地工作」。
Ulrichsen 指出了另一項 COVID-19 技術，該技術源自大學與公司之間的合作夥伴關係。 為應對呼吸機短缺，倫敦大學學院和大學學院醫院的研究人員與位於英國布里克斯沃思的梅賽德斯高性能動力總成公司，一家為一級方程式賽車製造零件的公司，合作開發了 Ventura 呼吸輔助裝置，這是一種用於呼吸機的機械設備 打開危重病人的呼吸道。
思維敏捷
Ulrichsen 說，在大流行期間，許多大學取消了限制撥款使用方式的官僚主義，並找到了優先考慮最具潛在影響力的研究的方法。 其結果是一種更像行業的方法來加速新產品的研究、開發和最終的商業化。 2021 年 1 月發布的一項分析發現，總體而言，大學能夠像私營公司一樣迅速地將產品推向市場。
並非大學採用的所有這些新方法都注定會持久。 在 Ulrichsen 和合著者倫納德凱萊赫 (Leonard Kelleher) 於 2021 年對 51 所英國大學進行的一項調查中，86% 的機構表示，他們已經開發出「新的工作方式」來支持大流行期間的創新。 但只有不到一半的人表示新方法產生了顯著積極和持久的影響。「有一種感覺，隨著大流行病的消退，我們正在恢復我們的舊習慣和做法」，烏爾里克森說。
出版商也加快了他們的進程。透過加速和簡化同行評審，期刊以前所未有的速度發表了與 COVID-19 相關的研究。 一項分析發現，在 2020 年上半年，期刊平均需要 19 天多一點的時間來接受與 COVID 相關的文章，而非 COVID 文章則需要超過 91 天。 到 2020 年 5 月，包括《科學》、《自然》和《美國國家科學院院刊》在內的 145 家出版商、機構和期刊承諾免費提供 COVID 信息，無需付費。「這是一種特殊情況，部分解決方案是開放獲取」，Paunov 說。
一家發動機製造商和一家教學醫院聯手生產 Ventura 呼吸輔助設備。圖片來源：James Tye/UCL
在大流行初期，預印本的使用也猛增，僅在 2020 年 4 月，就有近 2,000 篇論文在健康科學預印本服務器 medRxiv 上發表。 儘管出現了一些擔憂，即更快的出版可能會降低科學的嚴謹性和準確性，但撤稿率與一般研究並無太大差異。 到 2020 年 7 月下旬，已有 14 份預印本和大約 20 篇已發表的文章被撤回、撤回或標記為嚴重關切。
在 2022 年 7 月發表在《美國醫學科學雜誌》上的一封信中，位於拉伯克的德克薩斯理工大學健康科學中心的研究人員記錄了 2019 年 11 月至 2021 年 8 月期間 43 篇撤回或撤回的 COVID-19 論文。研究人員指出，「COVID-19 的大量湧入發表和撤回」，但補充說撤回率與之前爆發期間的情況相似，例如 H1N1 流感大流行。
Paunov 說，COVID 大流行也激發了創造力。 2020 年，政府、大學、非營利組織和其他團體贊助了一系列「黑客馬拉松」(hackathons)，學生、研究人員和行業專業人士團隊在虛擬聚會中有 24 到 48 小時的時間來創造新產品來應對危機。 正如 Paunov 指出的那樣，歐盟委員會於 2020 年 4 月組織的歐盟對應病毒黑客松 (EUvsVirus Hackathon) 產生了多種產品，包括虛擬學習平台和監控系統原型，該原型減少了護士與患者進行身體接觸的需要。「通常情況下，我們會說，要讓創新發揮作用，我們需要擁有可信賴關係且會面 55 次的人」，她說。「我發現從未一起工作過的人可以聚在一起幾天並提出解決方案，這很有趣」。
新玩家
Paunov 說，這場危機似乎也讓創新者脫穎而出。 呼籲新想法或新產品的政府機構和非營利組織突然收到了首次貢獻者的來信。「這顯示社會上有很多創新潛力」，Paunov 補充道。
紐約市哥倫比亞大學的經濟學家 Bhaven Sampat 說，在許多方面，科學家和發明家對 COVID-19 危機的反應與第二次世界大戰時全員參與的方法相呼應。 Sampat 與美國國家經濟研究局共同撰寫了一篇論文，探討了這兩個改變世界的災難之間的相似之處。 正如桑帕特所解釋的那樣，這兩次危機都是緊迫的、高風險的和出乎意料的。 儘管第二次世界大戰激發了曼哈頓計劃，這是一項製造原子武器的絕密跨國努力，但 COVID-19 引發了國際疫苗開發競賽。
這兩項舉措最終都取得了成功，但路徑卻截然不同。 正如 Sampat 解釋的那樣，第二次世界大戰中的大部分創新都是由一個實體產生和使用的：軍隊。「當你需要具有不同目標和觀點的平民和公司來改變他們的行為或使用特定技術時，這就更具挑戰性」，他說。
儘管第二次世界大戰激發了公民和政府的聯合反應，但 Paunov 說，在大流行期間，這種團結感在很大程度上消失了。 她說，回想起來，政府和研究中心本可以做更多的工作來建立充分利用新技術所需的信任與合作。「讓公民更多地參與進來，事情本可以變得更好」，她說。「一旦有了疫苗，就需要願意接種疫苗的人。一旦有了口罩，就需要願意戴口罩的人。一旦有了追踪應用程序，您就需要願意使用追踪應用程序的人」。
Paunov 說，對 COVID-19 的快速、協調、多管齊下的反應提醒我們，標準的創新方法並不總是足夠的。 而且肯定會有更多的艱難時期到來。「我們需要更加敏捷地採用新工具和數據可能性」，她說。「我們生活在一個危機接踵而至的世界」。
《自然》 612，S3-S4（2022 年）； doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-04204-3
本文是 Nature Index 2022 Innovation 的一部分，這是一份獨立的編輯增刊。 廣告商對內容沒有影響。
參考文獻：
1.Ebersberger, B. & Kuckertz, A. J. Bus. Res. 124, 126–135 (2021).
2.Aviv-Reuven, S. & Rosenfeld, A. Scientometrics 126, 6761–6784 (2021),
3.Peterson, C. J., Alexander, R. & Nugent, K. Am. J. Med. Sci. 364, 127–128 (2022).
How the pandemic inspired a new generation of creators
The COVID-19 crisis echoed the ‘all-hands-on-deck’ response to the Second World War, but such agility needs to be maintained.
Chris Woolston / NATURE INDEX / 07 December 2022 / NATURE
The Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine was the result of an urgent and responsive collaboration.
Credit: David Levene/Guardian/eyevine
“Never let a good crisis go to waste,” Winston Churchill is said to have once advised. In that spirit, scientists and institutions around the world used the COVID-19 pandemic to drive the development of products, technologies and approaches to innovation. “It was unique in a tragic way, and it spurred a whole new way of doing things,” says Caroline Paunov, an economist with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “It led to a different way of thinking about cooperation.” The crisis was so urgent and pervasive that it quickly pulled together governments, companies and research institutions for the common good. But as the pandemic wanes, questions remain about how long that sense of cooperation can last and what was learnt to help cope with the next global crisis.
Vaccines are the clearest example of COVID-driven innovation. Before the pandemic, it generally took a decade or so to develop a new vaccine. But in November 2020, less than a year after the SARS-CoV-2 virus was identified, the World Health Organization counted 220 vaccine candidates. By then, three vaccines — produced by Pfizer–BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford–AstraZeneca — had been shown to be at least 90% effective in trials.
Nature Index 2022 Innovation
The rapid development of vaccines was made possible by unusually strong industry–academia partnerships, says Tomas Ulrichsen, an innovation policy researcher at the University of Cambridge, UK. The Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine, for example, resulted from collaboration between university scientists who developed a prototype and industrial scientists who got it over the finish line. “They needed to work closely with an industrial partner to take it through large-scale clinical trials, manufacturing and distribution at scale,” Ulrichsen says. “It really highlighted what is possible when you get true collaboration — everyone working with urgency towards the same goal.”
Ulrichsen points to another COVID-19 technology that emerged from partnerships between universities and companies. Responding to a shortage of ventilators, researchers at University College London and University College Hospital worked with Mercedes High Performance Powertrains, a company in Brixworth, UK, that manufactures parts for Formula One cars, to develop the Ventura breathing aid, a mechanical device used to open the airways of critically ill patients.
Thinking fast
During the pandemic, many universities stripped down the bureaucracy that limited how grants could be spent and found ways to prioritize the most potentially impactful research, Ulrichsen says. The result was a more industry-like approach to speed up the research, development and eventually the commercialization of new products. An analysis1 published in January 2021 found that, in general, universities were able to bring products to market just as rapidly as private companies.
Not all of those new approaches adopted by universities are destined to last. In a 2021 survey of 51 UK universities delivered by Ulrichsen and co-author, Leonard Kelleher, 86% of institutions said they had developed “new ways of working” to support innovation during the pandemic. But less than half of those say that the new approaches have had a significantly positive and lasting impact. “There’s a sense that as the pandemic wanes, we are reverting to our old habits and practices,” Ulrichsen says.
Publishers, too, sped up their processes. By accelerating and streamlining peer review, journals published COVID-19-related research at an unprecedented pace. An analysis2 found that, in the first half of 2020, journals took an average of just over 19 days to accept COVID-related articles compared with more than 91 days for non-COVID articles. By May of 2020, 145 publishers, institutions and journals — including Science, Nature and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — had pledged to make COVID information freely accessible without paywalls. “It was an exceptional situation, and part of the solution was open access,” Paunov says.
An engine maker and a teaching hospital joined forces to produce the Ventura breathing aid.Credit: James Tye/UCL
Preprint use also rocketed in the early days of the pandemic, including nearly 2,000 papers published on medRxiv, the health-sciences preprint server, in the month of April 2020 alone. Although some concerns emerged that faster publishing could reduce scientific rigour and accuracy, the rate of retractions was not very different from research in general. By late July 2020, 14 preprints and about 20 published articles had been retracted, withdrawn or flagged for serious concerns.
In a letter3 published in the American Journal of Medical Science in July 2022, researchers at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock documented 43 retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers between November 2019 and August 2021. The researchers noted a “remarkable influx in COVID-19 publications and retractions”, but added that the retraction rate was similar to that seen during previous outbreaks, such as the H1N1 flu pandemic.
The COVID pandemic also inspired creativity, Paunov says. In 2020, governments, universities, non-profit organizations and other groups sponsored a series of ‘hackathons’, virtual gatherings in which teams of students, researchers and industry professionals had 24 to 48 hours to create new products to address the crisis. As Paunov notes, the EUvsVirus Hackathon, organized by the European Commission in April 2020, generated several products, including a platform for virtual learning and a prototype for a monitoring system that reduces the need for nurses to make physical contact with patients. “Normally, we would say that for innovation to work, we need people with trusted relationships who meet 55 times,” she says. “I found it fascinating that people who have never worked together can get together for a few days and come up with solutions.”
New players
The crisis also seemed to bring innovators out of the woodwork, Paunov says. Government agencies and non-profit organizations that put out calls for new ideas or products were suddenly hearing from first-time contributors. “It shows that there is a lot of innovation potential in society,” Paunov adds.
In many ways, the response of scientists and inventors to the COVID-19 crisis echoes the all-hands-on-deck approach to the Second World War, says Bhaven Sampat, an economist at Columbia University in New York City. Sampat co-wrote a paper4 for the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research that explored the parallels between the two world-altering calamities. As Sampat explains, both crises were urgent, high-stakes and unexpected. Although the Second World War inspired the Manhattan Project, a top-secret multinational effort to build an atomic weapon, COVID-19 triggered an international race to develop vaccines.
Both initiatives were ultimately successful, but the paths had distinct differences. As Sampat explains, much of the innovation in the Second World War was generated and used by a single entity: the military. “It’s much more challenging when you need civilians and firms with diverse goals and perspectives to change their behaviours or use particular technologies,” he says.
And although the Second World War inspired a united response from citizens and governments, Paunov says that sense of unity was largely missing during the pandemic. In retrospect, she says, governments and research centres could have done more to build the trust and cooperation needed to make the most of new technologies. “Things could have gone better by involving citizens more,” she says. “Once you have a vaccine, you need people who are willing to get a vaccine. Once you have a mask, you need people who are willing to wear a mask. Once you have a tracking app, you need people who are willing to use a tracking app.”
The rapid, coordinated, multi-pronged response to COVID-19 was a reminder that the standard approach to innovation is not always enough, Paunov says. And there are certainly more hard times to come. “We need to be more agile at adopting new tools and data possibilities,” she says. “We are living in a world where one crisis runs into another.”
Nature 612, S3-S4 (2022)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-04204-3
This article is part of Nature Index 2022 Innovation, an editorially independent supplement. Advertisers have no influence over the content.
References
4.Ebersberger, B. & Kuckertz, A. J. Bus. Res. 124, 126–135 (2021).
5.Aviv-Reuven, S. & Rosenfeld, A. Scientometrics 126, 6761–6784 (2021),
6.Peterson, C. J., Alexander, R. & Nugent, K. Am. J. Med. Sci. 364, 127–128 (2022).
Gross, D. P. & Sampat, B. N. Entrep. Innov. Pol. Econ. 1, 135–181 (2022).