Four years after COVID was declared a pandemic, Heterodox Academy convened scholars at the Stanford Faculty Club for a research summit: COVID and the Academy: What Have We Learned?

The COVID-19 pandemic put academic researchers in the center of a fast-moving global crisis. An international scientific community rallied to understand a new threat and develop interventions at remarkable speed, but there remains a furious debate about the decisions, medical outcomes, and societal impacts that followed.

This one-day symposium explored how the academic norms of open inquiry were followed, or not, in response to COVID, with the benefit of hindsight and the evidence gathered to date. “Instead of open minded inquiry, where voices of dissenting scientists were welcomed, we saw the social consequences of scientific inquiry being shut down and demonized,” said John Tomasi, President of Heterodox Academy.

The summit included presentations by Vinay Prasad, Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco; Tracy Beth Høeg, Physician & Epidemiologist, University of Southern Denmark; Peter Sandman, Risk Communication Consultant; Maja Graso, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Groningen; Ram Duriseti, Emergency Physician; Roger Koppl, Finance Professor, the Whitman School of Management of Syracuse University; and more.

Across the day, key insights surfaced about barriers to open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement during the initial waves of the global pandemic:

• Government Influence and Biomedical Research: The influence of government on COVID-related research biased its direction and hindered potentially crucial studies, contributing to a data-poor environment even 18 months into the pandemic.

• Transparency and Disagreement in Science: The scientific community failed to openly discuss and rigorously study key questions such as the efficacy of mask mandates, vaccine safety, and school closures, leading to a lack of consensus and public distrust.

• Expert Judgment and Trust: Second-hand expert opinions, often presented in mainstream media, rely on trust in a subset of first-hand experts. Issues like minority opinions being overlooked and epistemic trespassing were highlighted.

• Social Impacts of Public Health Policies: Social science research during the pandemic predominantly focused on compliance with public health measures, neglecting important questions about negative social impacts and the complexities of uniting against invisible threats like COVID-19.

"The COVID summit impressed upon me the importance of maintaining an open and curious mindset even in the face of a fast-moving pandemic,” said Alex Arnold, Director of Research at Heterodox Academy. “Even supposing that the first reactions of public health authorities were reasonable, given uncertainty about the coronavirus's properties, the failure to update our views about the coronavirus and the best means to mitigate its effects represents a failure to maintain an open and curious mindset."

The COVID STEM Summit was made possible with support from Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative of Eric and Wendy Schmidt, and is part of HxA’s larger initiative on Open Inquiry in the STEM Disciplines.