Are conservation biologists working too hard?

Are conservation biologists working too hard?

Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz, Lian Pin Koh, Richard B. Primack 2013. Biological Conservation

This paper focused on the workload of conservation biologist via amount of Manuscript and Review submission to the magazine Biological Conservation. The authors took into account the date and time of submission along with the respective country of the author. So are Conservation Biologists working too hard? The following are a highlights/quotes.

“In general, our results suggest that conservation biologists work extensively on weekends and at night, that the trend for working on weekends is increasing over time, and that these patterns have strong geographical structure. These habits could have negative impacts on the quality of the work as well as on the life-work balance of conservation scientists. Universities and other scientific organizations should allocate more time during regular work hours for scientists to complete their research duties, including the submission and review of manuscripts.”

“Scientists from different countries may have developed varied work habits to cope with these increasing workloads. Citizens of one country might be perceived to be more diligent than those of another, and this perception can give rise to national stereotypes.

"These perceptions, however, are largely anecdotal and subjective; as far as we know, there have been few studies comparing the work habits of scientists from different countries”

“Authors were in fact submitting less than a third as many papers on an average weekend day as on an average weekday.”



"Within the study period there was a gradual increase of ca. 5% per year in the rate of manuscripts submitted on weekends."

"We found that, overall, scientists involved in Biological Conservation’s editorial peer-review process do a substantial amount of work on the weekends (11–12% of total submissions) and on weekdays after working hours (16% of the overall manuscript submissions; Fig. 1)."

"Two authors from Belgium told us that, ‘‘I work only exceptionally on weekends,’’ and ‘‘weekends are reserved for family and household activities’’; authors from China and India reported that, ‘‘most scientists work seven days a week,’’ (China) and ‘‘I do real work (any thinking or writing) on weekends since my weekdays are taken up by administration and some teaching’’ (India). Additional factors, which need to be evaluated, are the desire to be in an air-conditioned office and need to work on weekends when internet connections are more available."



"Mexican scientists also are particularly active at night, reflecting their status as the country with the highest average work hours.


In summary, this study has shown that conservation biologists, and presumably other scientists as well, carry out a considerable portion of their work activities on weekends and evenings, that the tendency of working on weekends is increasing over time, and that overtime working habits have very distinct geographical patterns.

Why are scientists so active? Is it that their country requires it or is it for personal gain?

What other factors can play into the workload of scientists? Things such as family, administration and lecturing were mentioned—they also mention that, “There is a potential for this overtime to have a negative effect on the quality of the work done by the scientists as well as on the balance between work demands and family and personal life.”

Some Questions to consider

How has the workload affected you so far?



Could these be similar patterns to student workload/time management?



Access to internet and journals seems to play a role here how does it play a role in your workload?

Points/Comments Raised During Discussion Group

• Employers want you to work, but you also put the work on yourself
• No longer restricted to certain time frames
• Can do things whenever you would like to do them

• Pay
• Don’t get paid for lunch
• Don’t get paid for overtime
• Paid in salary, just work and do your job

• Pressure from peers/employer
• You are invested in your work, so you continue to worry about it
• Work fast to keep efficiency

• What is work?
• Work with your mind/dreams/in a shower/we work all the time

• Work patterns don’t change very much from student to postgrad
• Change very little/gradually
• Or it just gets worse
• There is more work but you get to adapt to it because you have to do it
• Over-commitment
• We are intellectually curious
• Cannot finish one project and go on to the next one, go off on tangents
• Some can multitask some can’t 

• Need to cut yourself off
• Need to take a break so you don’t get stale

• Lots of work/life balance when you become a supervisor
• Don’t want to let anyone down
• If it is your own project you put it at the end of the list since it only deals with you

• Naps?
• What are the benefits of naps?
• Should you get paid to sleep?
• Live in your office?
• If you live at work you might not be as productive

• Endorphins
• Work that is not stressful is good
• Work that is stressful is also good

• Some peoples brains are good with taking a break in the middle of a project others need to finish before going to bed

• Expectations
• We set expectations so we need to meet those expectations
• Forces us to keep raising the bar?
• Not giving a response so people try to figure it out on their own

• How to do this study a better way?
• Take Deadlines into account?
• Survey/anonymous 
• Some kind of monitoring on a personal scale