Environment submissions database

The Imperial College Community has been at the forefront of local, national and international efforts to combat the COVID-19 Pandemic. Bangham, Barclay and Ferguson have been members of SAGE. A further 14 senior academics have been members of its subgroups and/or NERVTAG. Ferguson and colleagues played a vital role in advising the Government on lockdown measures , and Openshaw has played a prominent role in the media. Flaxman and Gandy’s work on developing a new statistical framework to model the COVID-19 pandemic has been used to inform the decisions of policy makers worldwide The REACT study (Elliott) provides real time surveillance to increase situational awareness in the UK in partnership with DHSC and IpsosMORI. Barclay and Kelly’s environmental COVID testing of the London Transport network and our campuses Shattock’s work on a self-amplifying RNA vaccine platform is focussed on the production of next-generation COVID vaccines targeting variants, boosters and thermal stability. The REMAP-CAP trial platform led by Gordon demonstrated glucocorticoid treatment improves survival and has been adopted internationally. We established a testing facility for students and external (e.g. care home) use, re-purposed laboratories for the production of hand sanitiser and 50k pieces of PPE and produced an open-source design for a low-cost ventilator. The agility of our research environment is evidenced by the fact that 8 of our Impact case studies relate (at least partially) to work on the Pandemic Locally, Gold and Silver emergency teams managed rapid transition to remote working for most staff and students, whilst ensuring that essential COVID-related research could continue without interruption. Emergency flexible working arrangements were made, family leave extended, and wellbeing/mental health support enhanced. A well-being survey was conducted, and a well-being day and 3 additional days of leave were granted. Safely re-opening laboratories was a high priority, to support the post-COVID STEM-based economic recovery, and to support staff who could not work from home. From April, we reopened a range of lab-types (e.g. wet, dry, microscopy) for 2-week trials. We adopted measures such as reduced occupancy/social distancing/mask wearing in general areas, undertook full Risk Assessments for laboratories, and implemented innovative control measures – e.g. using webcam ‘buddies’ to mitigate lone working risks, establishing researcher cohorts to facilitate lab access. We implemented a Code of conduct for all staff on campus and required all staff to undertake induction ab initio to ensure understanding of new H&S procedures. Research laboratories have remained open during second and third lockdowns. We have prioritised lab access for students and post-docs approaching the end of their project, granted PhD extensions of up to six months to all students who were not already writing up, and invested c.£800k of College funds in stipend extensions, as well as administering >£900k from other funders. We allocated c.75% (c.f requirement of 35%) of our £7.8m UKRI COVID allocation to direct costs of research (mainly contract extensions).