Environment submissions database

Overall Response In March 2020, UoE formed the Adaption and Renewal Team to respond to COVID-19. Its research and innovation group has overseen support for researchers throughout the pandemic. Although Government action forced closure of most research facilities, we maintained ~40% of research during first lock-down, developing safe approaches to enable COVID-related and other essential programmes. We have consistently supported researchers to work from home whenever possible. Our major data-driven innovation programme has facilitated flipping to digital approaches. We reopened all research facilities within 6 weeks of permission from Scottish Government (July 2020), adapting to 2m social distancing and extended shift patterns. We achieved research spend ~88% of 2019 levels in Autumn 2020. Since then we have maintained as much research as feasible, even keeping all research facilities open during the second lockdown, although with constrained staffing. Supporting pandemic responses We invested over £5M to support COVID-19 responses, including extra clinical academic time, laboratory support (PCR testing for NHS Lothian) and PPE production, £4M to COVID data research and £100K to backfill research for staff advising Governments (3 SAGE/SPI-M members, 3 Scottish equivalent). We committed £37.6M to expand our Institute for Regeneration and Repair (2020-22), and £17M to expand our Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine (2020-22) to support COVID-19 research and £223K to upgrade Category 3 Labs. Staff support In addition to extensive existing mental health and wellbeing resources, we launched COVID-19 ‘Looking After Your Wellbeing’ support (April), digital coaching support for leaders (May) and support for staff with PTSD/anxiety (June). We supported staff working from home by rolling out Zoom and Teams (£90K), extending network capacity to support offsite access to resources and ‘virtual labs’ to reduce on-site working. Our Main Library developed a Click and Collect service to allow access to research materials. Above UKRI and Wellcome extensions, we allocated £500K to support ECRs, particularly those in protected groups, to address disruption to research from caring responsibilities, inadequate home conditions, impediments to data collection and an uncertain job market. Line managers are encouraged to prioritise ECRs for access to research support including internal seed funding. Similarly, we allocated £1.4M to extend UoE-funded PhD students. Addressing precarity, we invested £9M to appoint our best post-docs to 40 tenure-track Chancellor’s Fellowships (80% females, 19% BAME, end 2020). ‘Near misses’ receive intensive mentoring (including for external fellowships). These costs are partly offset by SFC’s additional research funding (£23.3M). Impact UoE researchers have responded quickly to COVID-19. In April, 150 researchers in the MRC Centre for Inflammation Research re-deployed to explore new treatments (STOPCOVID, £2M). We won £28M to lead Genomics England, the NHS and the GenOMICC (Genetics of Susceptibility and Mortality in Critical Care) in identifying genetic predispositions to COVID-19. BREATHE, our Data Research Hub for Respiratory Health, leads investigations into prevention (ELVIS COVID-19) and lifestyle influences on risk (Covidence). We helped identify stroke as a common neurological complication and discovered younger patients often experience altered mental states. We first showed the impact of vaccination on hospitalisation.