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What science says about hybrid working — and how to make it a success

How researchers can maximize creativity and connection in the ‘new normal’.
  1. David Adam

    1. David Adam is a writer in Hertford, near London.

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A woman works on her laptop at an outdoor table in Flatiron with a view of the Empire State Building in the background

A woman works from an outside table in New York City in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted lasting changes to working habits. Credit: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty

Certain aspects of scientific life do not lend themselves to working from home. Archaeologist Adrià Breu, who studies neolithic pottery at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain, can’t dig for artefacts in his kitchen, and Claudia Sala’s experiments in molecular microbiology at the Toscana Life Sciences Foundation in Siena, Italy, oblige her to commute to her laboratory most days. But both these researchers also get to work from home — when they write up papers, for example, or analyse data.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00643-2

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