Chemists amid coronavirus five years on: Liang Zhang

Right after Liang Zhang, a young chemistry professor at East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai, joined the university in January 2020, efforts to build the lab that would house his team were placed on hold by Covid-19. But Zhang pressed on, helping to run a joint lab of eight researchers with his former supervisor David Leigh at the University of Manchester in the UK, by relying on virtual lab meetings and spending time writing research grant proposals.

Navigating the pandemic was very trying, but he found that lockdown allowed him the space and time to consider the most important projects worth pursuing.

‘My group aims to produce high-quality research, and while we may publish around three to four papers per year, we strive to ensure that each one makes a meaningful contribution to the field,’ he says. ‘And that’s because I had enough time [during lockdown] to think about the right projects that deserved my time.’

Starting his independent career during a lockdown motivated Zhang to work especially hard.

‘While the timing of when one begins their career can be significant, in my current environment we are all evaluated on a level playing field,’ he explains. ‘I compete with colleagues who are under 45, and everyone faces their own unique challenges. The fact that I started working during a pandemic and had limited funding doesn’t provide me with any special consideration. It’s important to focus on the contributions we can make now.’

’We don’t even need to test for Covid now’

After signing a second contract with Manchester a few years ago, he still runs a team with Leigh but is increasingly working on independent research projects.

Zhang’s lab is back to regular operations. During Covid-19, his team worked restricted hours in the lab and in shifts to maintain physical distance, but since 2023 those procedures have been phased out. ‘There are no masks anymore, and we don’t even need to test for Covid now – if you get sick, you just stay at home for a few days,’ he says.

ECNU and its chemistry department are also returning to a pre-pandemic normality. For example, before Covid-19 master’s students there couldn’t receive their degrees without publishing at least one paper in a scientific journal, and those who entered the university during the pandemic were relieved of that obligation since their ability to do lab work was greatly limited or non-existent. But this year, Zhang anticipates that students who joined ECNU in 2023 or later will once again be subjected to this rule.

Chemistry conferences returning to China

Conferences have ramped up significantly in the past year. ‘I had about six to eight different conferences in 2024 and did a lot of travelling around the world, including going to Japan twice for meetings,’ states Zhang, whose wife gave birth to their first child last March.

In addition, he says, China has once again become a popular destination for global scientific conferences. ‘Even [in 2023] we didn’t host a lot of international conferences, but in 2024 that changed,’ Zhang notes. For example, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (Iupac) convened two major meetings in Beijing last year.

The importance of virtual meetings and courses was underscored by the pandemic and has become standard practice among research groups, Zhang emphasises. ECNU also now encourages professors to record their lessons and post them online. Such backup plans are very helpful because it’s impossible to predict most future major disruptions, including flooding, other natural disasters and war, he suggests.

Meanwhile, Covid-19 seriously impacted research funding in China. An analysis in Nature indicated that the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) only financed about 13% of the applications it received in 2024. That’s compared to 16% the previous year.

‘During Covid-19, more and more young people – scholars – came back from other countries to China to take positions at Chinese universities,’ Zhang explains. ‘So, there was a huge increase in research grant applicants, but a relatively lower increase in the funding.’

’It is extremely important to have international connections’

Zhang says the NSFC funded one of his research projects at ¥630,000 (£70,000) for four years in 2020 but in 2024 it only awarded ¥500,000 – an almost 20% decrease.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House on 20 January also concerns Zhang, who fears that Trump’s policies will hamper global research collaborations.

‘It is extremely important to have the international connections in China and Japan, the US, Europe, everywhere – if the politics in the US fights against these interactions, then that would be very dangerous for the global scientific community,’ Zhang says.

He has been invited to deliver a talk at a Gordon Research Conference on artificial molecular switches and motors in New Hampshire in June but is worried about getting a visa. ‘I would like to go – I’ve already registered and told the conference organiser that I will be there – but now Trump is president, and I am not sure if my visa will be issued,’ Zhang says.