The Resilience of Researchers from the Perspective of Sustainability in Times of a Pandemic

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to understand the importance of resilient attitudes in the course of drafting, developing, and completing research projects related to academic processes of graduate students. Considering, however, that allhumanity and all systems were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, the role of science deserves to be highlighted, once it was daily required to seek solutions to face the virus, as well as to point towards ways of minimizing its effects. Thus, research centers were heavily demanded and had to put resilience into practice in the daily routine of research. Therefore, in the context of the dynamics in the context of the transdisciplinary dynamics, research data were generated through a semi-structured interview, through which 7 (seven) student researchers, linked to twohigher education institutions in the Federal District - Brasília, were interviewed. Accordingly, the objective was, through content analysis, to identify the actions students relied upon to remain resilient in their training processes, aswell as the initiatives that revealed a component of resilience in research projects that could provide greater sustainability. Then, the analytical perception, through the research results, allowed us to perceive that “research” is one of the ways to make students feel like protagonists and create favorable conditions to move forward in terms of knowledge. The search for answers to research problems, by researchers, goes beyond their competences in the cognitive dimension, also involving the intuitive, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. Thus, academic contexts are favorable spaces for the development and practice of resilience. Therefore, mediators should be careful so they can face the setbacks arising from the research process together. On the other hand, research students managed to successfully complete their research journey and move forward in their knowledge construction processes, because they practiced resilience.

This is because resilient people remain productive, even in the midst of vulnerable and uncertain contexts. And theycan stay focused, carry out the activities that must be done, and know how to take advantage of the time and circumstances in favor of their goals.

In this sense, it is perceived that resilient people always find possibilities, hitherto unimagined, to transform the emerging problem into an opportunity because they linked their personal project to anacademic-social dimension, thus demarcating its concern for sustainability. Healthy resilient attitudes are necessary in order to achieve this as research projects are drafted, developed, and completed, a fact that became more evident because the researchers had a transdisciplinary perception of life and academic projects. Finally, the engagement with transdisciplinary projects whose references were existential plenitude and social sustainability strengthened resilience, put into practice as adaptation and growth, both internally (personally) and externally (socially).