Environment submissions database

This Annex covers two time periods during which the COVID-19 pandemic had potential to impact on the institutional research environment: (a) the final part of the assessment period (1 March 2020 to 31 July 2020); (b) the closing stages of evidence gathering, writing and submission (1 August 2020 to 31 March 2021). 1 March 2020 – 31 July 2020 People: The University transitioned to working from home and online at the beginning of March 2020. Only 4 research staff were furloughed in this period. The most affected community was the PGRs. Compared with the same five-month period in 2019, PhD submissions decreased by 14%, PhD vivas decreased by 18% and conferrals dropped by 45%. PGR short-term suspensions increased from 17 to 26. We awarded COVID-19 additional stipend payments/fee-waivers to 18 final year PGRs who were non-UKRI/DTP funded and created a new Doctoral Resources Fund of £100k that facilitated remote working for 76 (55 female) PGRs. Infrastructure and Impact: Laboratory access and on-site technical support were restored from mid-July for essential research. We set up an internal COVID-19 Fund of £35k that allowed 9 projects to start work immediately on COVID-19 related impacts. Preparation on grant applications for COVID-19 Calls was initiated and subsequently the University secured 6 grants from UKRI, NERC, Innovate UK, BEIS and the WHO. No significant grants were halted. Funding: Grant awards reduced by 38% in the 5-month period (20 compared with 32 for the same period in 2019) due to delays in decisions from funding bodies rather than a reduced success rate. 9 projects (6 to female PIs) were supported from the £261k UKRI Grant Extension Allocation (CoA). 1 August 2020 – 31 March 2021 People: We experienced increased pressure on both academic and professional staff caused by COVID-19-related illness and heightened caring responsibilities. This was managed appropriately but it did cause increased workloads for several staff involved with REF2021 preparations. No individual staff or UoA requested an output reduction due to the first wave of COVID-19. We provided additional COVID-19 stipend payments to non-UKRI/DTP students in their final year of funding (10 more since 31 July 2020) and agreed a further 59 PhD suspensions for the period up to March 2021. Infrastructure and Impact: Our Centre for Creative Arts (CCA) has been closed to the public and for research activities since March 2020. This resulted in postponed events and exhibitions, but also sparked novel online symposia and digital access to collections. Two COVID-19 impact case study statements are included, one where a landmark event was postponed (Tokyo Olympics), and the other where we had to adapt to produce an online international exhibition. Testimonials to support our 40 ICS experienced some delays but were all fully received and processed ready for audit by March 2021. Funding: Our award income for the 8 months since 1 August 2020 has increased by 44% compared with the same period in 2019, suggesting an unlocking of COVID-19 delays by funders and an in-built resilience to our research environment.