For the past several months, the world watched as Australian bush fires ravaged the Land Down Under. At the time of this article, most of the bush fires have been contained or put out by rainstorms, however, the lasting destruction left behind has only begun to be addressed.

Now the world may soon come face-to-face with a global pandemic that has so far infected over 80,000 individuals and has resulted in almost 3,000 deaths: the coronavirus, or more formally known as COVID-19 (WHO, 2020). Between these two natural disasters, one issue in particular falls within the realm of academia and is not limited just to fires or global viruses: the lasting effects to individuals in academia and individual’s research after a natural disaster. For instance, at Texas Southern University during the time of Hurricane Harvey (August 25, 2017), widespread flooding displaced faculty, staff, and students in the area, resulted in the university losing major amounts of data, delayed the start of classes and registration for the next semester, and damaged valuable scientific instruments (Hedges et al., 2018). Natural disasters can also potentially effect research samples, job security, research funding, and a variety of complications for researchers (Benjamin, Brown, & Carlin, 2017). In the long term, events such as the Australian bush fires or the coronavirus can also call into question future funding and international recruitment for universities (Ross, 2020). Not to mention how the many study abroad students are forced to change their educational career plans due to these natural disasters (Graham, 2020; Ciechalski, 2020). Overall, these disasters halt critical research progress.

Amid the chaos and life-altering events for researchers in academia, international academic publishers such as IGI Global are acutely aware of the consequences not just to academics, but the world in general. Thus, as the coronavirus started to spread across China, IGI Global was quick to offer complimentary resources on containment strategies to Chinese researchers in Chinese institutions. The complimentary access offered to colleagues in China included several areas of critical research such as disease prevention, public health, and other related topics to aid the medical community in China to develop disease suppression strategies. Also, in collaboration with IGI Global’s global subsidiary office in China and our Chinese distribution partners, we are working closely with all research institutions to ensure their access to the latest research published by IGI Global. To view a full message from IGI Global's President and CEO, Dr. Mehdi Khosrow-Pour, please see the weblink provided here.

The future prevention and mitigation of the global impacts of natural disasters and pandemics can only be solved through high-quality, vetted research. If you would like to contribute your research to the betterment of society, please visit IGI Global’s Publications Seeking Submissions page or Submit a Book Proposal today.

References

Benjamin, G.C., Brown, L., & Carlin, E. (2017). Strengthening the disaster resilience of the academic biomedical research community: Protecting the nation's investment. NCBI. Retrieved February 20, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK464150/

Ciechalski, Suzanne. (2020). 'I got no help': U.S. students on study abroad in China left scrambling by coronavirus. NBC News. Retrieved February 27, 2020, from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/i-got-no-help-u-s-students-study-abroad-china- n1140766

Graham, K. (2020, January 9). Australia's wildfires and study abroad: 'We're hoping we have a country to go visit.' The State News. https://statenews.com/article/2020/01/australias-wildfires-and- study-abroad-were-hoping-we-have-a-country-to-go-visit

Hedges, J. R., Soliman, K. F. A., D’Amour, G., Liang, D., Rodríguez-Díaz, C. E., Thompson, K., … Yanagihara, R. (2018). Academic response to storm-related natural disasters—lessons learned. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(8), 1768. doi: 10.3390/ijerph15081768

Ross, J. (2020, January 14). Australian academics debate long-term impact of bushfire crisis. The World University Rankings. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/australian-academics-debate-long-term-impact-bushfire-crisis#survey-answer

World Health Organization. (2020). Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) situation report – 37. WHO. Retrieved February 27, 2020, from https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200226-sitrep-37-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=2146841e_2

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