Learn Spanish (Spain): Los profesores continúan haciendo la investigación académica. - The professors continue doing the academic research.

In Spanish, the verbs continuar and seguir must be followed directly by a gerund (the -ando or -iendo form) to express that an action is continuing. You cannot use the infinitive (hacer) or a preposition like a here.

Could I use siguen instead of continúan in this sentence?

Yes, absolutely! Los profesores siguen haciendo... means exactly the same thing. Seguir and continuar are generally interchangeable when used with a gerund to talk about continuing an action, though seguir is often a bit more common in everyday spoken Spanish.

Why does continúan have an accent mark on the u?

The accent mark is there to break a diphthong (a combination of two vowels). Without the accent, the stress would naturally fall on the second-to-last syllable together (con-ti-NUA-n). Putting the accent on the ú separates the u and the a into two different syllables, ensuring the spoken stress lands correctly on the u: con-ti-NÚ-an.

English usually says 'doing academic research' without 'the'. Why does Spanish use la here?