Environment submissions database

COVID-19 disruption has had the following impact on Abertay’s ability to support and conduct research and enable impact: Disruption of our staff’s capacity to undertake research and knowledge exchange (RKE). In March 2020, all teaching was promptly converted to on-line mode (without any suspension to delivery), thereby creating additional and immediate workloads for staff with Significant Responsibility for Research, as they also carry teaching responsibilities. Two-thirds of Abertay staff surveyed in June and October 2020 felt that COVID-19 had impeded their research. COVID-19 has also increased childcare responsibilities for some crucial staff, where for example, their partner is a key worker. As a small institution, this may have disproportionately impacted us, as we have less scope to compensate for disruption through staff redeployment. For example, for one UoA, two of the three REF Champions became the main carer/teacher. Social distancing and additional cleaning requirements have reduced laboratory access; meaning experimental work has taken longer or had to be postponed, with some human participant laboratory work being discontinued. Reduced partner organisations’ dissemination of our research and measuring impact. Disruption and re-prioritisation of resources by external partners has reduced or delayed some research dissemination and planned activities to capture/measure/monitor impact which were scheduled for towards the end of the REF2021 period. This has affected UoA32, where international exhibitions were cancelled, and other Units (e.g., UoA3 and UoA4) where surveys and final practice measurements were to be conducted within schools or at conference meetings. For example, several partner organisations had to cancel planned CPD or accredited training based on our research and knowledge exchange. UoA21 and UoA18 were also affected, as planned field-testing of new approaches to combating crime, and an important meeting with UK Ministers where our research findings on international treaty obligations on disability access would be discussed, were both postponed due to the pandemic. Disruption to development and population of our open data repository. Although our published outputs are open-access compliant, our intended date for open research data compliance (June 2020) has been delayed due to re-focus of Information Services resources to support the move to on-line delivery of taught programmes and researcher development activity for Research Degree Students and staff. We plan to be fully compliant by December 2021, as restrictions are eased, and staff can access the campus. Abertay has mitigated COVID-19’s impact on RKE through: Wherever possible, we have used SFC and UKRI COVID-19 mitigation funding to provide some (i) teaching support and research assistants for research active staff to offset increased teaching load and reduced laboratory access, and (ii) support (extensions and/or finance) for Research Degrees Students who have been unable to effectively mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on their progress. We have maximised use of our laboratory facilities through careful management of laboratories across disciplines. Wherever possible, we have used social media to disseminate/measure the impact of our research. This has allowed us to expand our research’s geographical reach. We have provided regular staff briefings and ensured support and staff welfare resources are easily available.