The recent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is impacting the research community worldwide with unforeseen long-term consequences for research, doctoral training, and international collaboration. It is already clear that the immediate effects of the crisis resulting from disrupted research stays and reduced career development opportunities are being most detrimental to early-career researchers. Based on a Sino-German international research training group dedicated to doctoral training and biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research, we show how resilience of large collaborative research programs can be promoted in times of global crisis. We outline possible adaptations in the areas of funding, research, teaching and learning, supervision and mentoring, and international collaboration helping to reduce detrimental impact for early-career researchers and to permanently strengthen the performance of large collaborative research groups in the postpandemic era.
Keywords: BEF‐China; COVID‐19; TreeDì; biodiversity; coronavirus; early‐career researchers.
© 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.