Environment submissions database

The COVID-19 crisis has brought unprecedented financial and operational challenges for research at LSE. The School has seen large reductions in income and had to move rapidly to remote working practices. Across all planning we have been guided by our research principles: protecting our ability to recruit and support world-class faculty, and promoting and sustaining an excellent research environment so as to maintain momentum in our research. In adhering to these principles, the School has endeavoured to share the burden of adjustment fairly. School management recognises the impact of the pandemic on working patterns, productivity, health and wellbeing. Data gathering has guided crisis management, and networks for women and BAME staff have produced reports and recommendations to help ensure that the School’s response acknowledges diversity of impact and avoids entrenching existing inequalities. As part of the cost-reduction programme, capital development on the School campus has been temporarily halted and the School’s non-pay budget reduced by 10%. In spite of these challenges, the School has continued to hire Early Career Researchers, LSE Fellows and teaching assistants. LSE remains strongly committed to the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, and £85,000 has been spent on renewing the contracts of researchers that expired over the lockdown period, the vast majority of which have been extended until at least October 2020. One-year extensions have also been granted to Interim and Major Review periods for Assistant Professors to ensure non-detriment in progression. £1.6 million has been spent on research support during the pandemic, and a further £1m in UKRI funding distributed to applicants whose projects have been adversely affected. The School has continued to take on PhD students, and financial support has been offered to students whose research plans have been disrupted. £2.6 million has been earmarked to fund up to six-month extensions to LSE-funded PhD studentships, equal to those granted to UKRI-funded PhD students. In keeping with our 2030 Strategy to be the world’s leading social science institution with the greatest global impact, the School has launched initiatives to support new research to address the challenges we face, both in terms of limiting the social and economic effects of the pandemic and helping to shape a better post-COVID world. A COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund has provided nearly £320,000 in funding, across a range of disciplines, to 23 projects deemed most likely to impact on policy-making in response to the crisis. Funding has been awarded to researchers at all levels of seniority, a majority to women or co-led projects. The School of Public Policy has drawn together colleagues from across the School to offer expert knowledge and analysis to national and international policymakers. It is co-hosting the School’s Shaping the Post-COVID World initiative alongside thought leaders and partners, a global debate involving a series of virtual seminars and public lectures centring around eight main themes. Blog pieces are published after each event, online courses developed to make findings available to policymakers, and key contributions presented in an eBook aimed at a public audience.