Environment submissions database

UoB’s response to COVID-19 has been driven by three key groups. A Crisis Response Team comprising senior management and focusing on health, safety and operational matters, and two multidisciplinary research initiatives: UNiversity COVid Emergency Response (UNCOVER) concentrating on COVID-related biomedical research; ReCOVer focusing on post-COVID economic and social recovery. Interdisciplinary URIs have been invaluable in enabling these activities, with EBI’s Rapid Response Funding distributing c.£0.75m across all Faculties. UoB closed all non-essential laboratories and non-COVID-19 face-to-face research on 23/03/2020. Post-lockdown, nearly all laboratories re-opened and research restarted. Before and through lockdown we repurposed research facilities and reoriented efforts towards pandemic-related activities such as: coronavirus test development; structure-based vaccine design through synthetic biology and immunological research; development and supply of antiviral handwash to Bristol City Council and Bristol’s two acute NHS Trusts. There was substantial resource-redirection to urgent COVID-19 research. NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre deployed resources from paused non-COVID studies to focus on RECOVERY trial recruitment (resulting in >50% of Bristol’s COVID patients being enrolled), and redirected informatics work including to NHS Digital Trusted Research Environment for England. Individuals at all levels contributed clinical service time. Lockdown delayed NHS, community-based and non-electronic-archival research (including projects involving international partners), diverted research time to redesigning studies and online-teaching preparation, postponing research leave. Aware of the pandemic’s differential effects, we created an EDI Resources Hub and Working Group to identify and ameliorate research staff inequalities exacerbated by COVID-19. We encouraged and enabled continuing research wherever possible, facilitating video-conferencing and providing staff with the equipment necessary for home-working. Capitalising on UNCOVER’s experience in establishing protocols for safe working during lockdown, UoB’s Campus/Estates Division opened laboratories and research spaces early after lockdown, albeit with reduced throughput. We have moved much of our research and support to researchers online (livestreams, FAQs etc.), including delivery on our commitments to the Concordat for researcher career development. UNCOVER’s highlights include: elucidating the mechanism by which SARS-CoV-2 instructs cells to generate virus proteins and how this changes over time, with important implications for vaccine development; establishing real-time PCR tests to detect virus-specific genetic sequences; discovering a ‘druggable pocket’ in the virus spike protein (Science 2020a) and defining a co-receptor (Science 2020b), informing design and development of small molecule antivirals; WHO-coordinated/UoB-led meta-analysis establishing clinical benefit of corticosteroids in critically ill COVID-19 patients; measurement of fluxes and size of aerosol generation and airborne survival, in general and clinical settings (ICS by Reid and Bzdek, UOA8). Further interdisciplinary activities include continuing domestic violence research and the city-wide UKRI/DHSC-funded CoMMinS study into transmission and prevention in schools. ReCOVer is investigating: digital inequality in access/speed/connectivity; COVID-19’s health and social impacts on the region’s BAME communities; research by staff and students on COVID-19 experiences of marginal communities, including the disabled, co-produced with the city and community/voluntary sector. UoB’s inputs to UK-SAGE include: novel infectious disease modelling on coronavirus spread in universities and connected communities; Lucy Yardley (co-Chair, SAGE Behaviours subgroup) was awarded an OBE for contributions to implementing measures to reduce the impact of the virus.