Environment submissions database

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on Birkbeck, both in the last 6 months of the REF census period, and since. Like most institutions we pivoted to home working and remote learning at very short notice and in that period many colleagues were also in the almost impossible position of working from home while home schooling, coping with caring responsibilities or dealing with their own ill-health or that of others. The inequalities that this created, especially for ECRs, female colleagues and PGR students, rapidly became evident and the trends observed in research across the globe were also seen at Birkbeck. The College does not have a Medical School or any Engineering Departments and was not asked to repurpose any staff, students or facilities directly into frontline or key research roles to help address the immediate and pressing problems of the pandemic (i.e. developing effective treatments/condition management protocols, vaccine research, or PPE/healthcare equipment production). We worked closely with UCL to ensure our laboratory equipment was available if needed and we donated stocks of PPE to recognised collection schemes. In addition, our researchers secured the five awards from UKRI Covid rapid-response scheme. The College managed the various extensions from funders in line with their specific guidance and for our internally-funded PhD students we matched the financial support offered by UKRI (ie 6 months for those within 12 months of submission at the point the pandemic broke, and 3 months support for those due to complete 12-24 months later). Many of our PGR students are self-funded, part-time and from BAME or other disadvantaged backgrounds so we used a generous alumnus donation to offer no cost extensions to self-funded final year students. In addition, we repurposed unspent conference funds from 19/20 to (for example) provide marking relief or to allow researchers to buy resources to complete research at home. Some of these funds were re-purposed to our student hardship fund, ringfenced for PhD students. In line with our publicly engaged mission, we also set up Birkbeck inspires (Birkbeck Inspires — Birkbeck, University of London (bbk.ac.uk)) a free online research-based resource providing events, activities and resources to inspire learning, provoke thought, and inform the public. It includes videos and podcasts covering a wide range of issues including a Resilience and Support section for practical advice and guidance on improving your wellbeing during the pandemic. Birkbeck academics coordinated the production of an online guide to fight the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, The COVID-19 Vaccine Communication Handbook. In the 20/21 academic year we set up a new branch of our internal research seed fund (the Research Innovation Fund) to support researchers who have been constrained from undertaking research as a consequence of caring responsibilities or ill health. Our researchers can currently apply for support until the end of the 2021/2022 financial year. The College will take mitigating circumstances relating to the pandemic into consideration in promotion rounds for at least the whole of the next census period (or five years, whichever is longer).