Environment submissions database

The impact of Covid-19 on Goldsmiths has been profound. Goldsmiths transformed itself in a matter of days after the start of the pandemic. The commitment and hard work of staff and students has been impressive. Goldsmiths has remained a changed institution and the reverberations are still following through the organisation and being understood. Some of the impact has been detrimental to our research, but some has been positive. New relationships have been kindled and new opportunities opened up. The immediate impact concerned a significant shift in our labour time and resource from research to teaching activity: academic colleagues oriented themselves to the huge task of moving their teaching online and departments agreed to hold on sabbaticals that were not absolutely essential in order that work could focus on the immediate priority of teaching. There has been uncertainty and disruption to recruitment and admissions. The downturn in recruitment for overseas students for 2020-21 for Goldsmiths has been financially significant. 23% of our funded research projects were impacted with extensions and/or furloughed staff. Over the 12 months from March 2020, 18 research active staff (12 R-only and 6 T&R contract) were furloughed. During lockdown, lab-based and studio-based research was put on hold except in exceptional circumstances. Plans for fieldwork and basic research, (including location work overseas, face-to-face interviews, ethnographic observations, and archive and library-based research were severely disrupted. Conference attendance and overseas travel for the dissemination of research, but also for developing collaborative links has stopped during lockdown. Differential impacts were felt across different constituencies of staff. Working patterns and levels of work of academic colleagues with care dependents (whether children or elderly parents or otherwise) were disrupted; for different social, economic, and medical reasons, women and BAME staff and those with particular disabilities and underlying health conditions are very likely to have been impacted more by the disease; and the mental health impact across staff has been regularly noted as a major concern across the duration of the pandemic. Of particular note is whether the differential impact of the disease might have an impact on the career paths and promotion opportunities of certain constituencies of staff. The full impact will need to be properly investigated and assessed and appropriate mitigations put in place. Regarding PGR students, our 2020 Annual Progress Monitoring exercise recorded 87% (382 of 438 respondents) with significant disruption. 25% respondents highlighted disruption to practice research, fieldwork or data collection plans. 80 students cited loss of access to facilities and equipment. 36 UKRI funded students have been granted funding extensions, with a further 30 having applied for a funding extension in the current phase. 28 self-funded students have been granted extensions to their registration periods. Goldsmiths’ colleagues addressed the crisis admirably, increasing levels of volunteering across local communities, providing online workshops and short courses and Goldsmiths’ work on its civic agenda has accelerated to support economic and social recovery in our locality.