Research School Irregular

Dear PGR candidate

You are invited to participate in an online survey to share your experiences of how the Covid-19 ‘lockdown’ since 23 March is impacting on your research, and the likely impact if social distancing in the workplace is required in the months ahead.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has commissioned Vitae, supported by UKRI and Universities UK, to gather evidence to understand the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic on the activities of researchers and research groups. This evidence will inform BEIS’s consideration and design of potential interventions to help protect researchers, research institutions and facilities, and in the longer term reinforce the research base and sustain research and innovation activity in the UK.

All researchers employed in UK universities, research institutes, charities and companies are invited to respond to the survey. We are particularly interested to hear from principal investigators and leaders of research groups.

I recognise that these are uncertain and disruptive times and will very much appreciate it if you can find the time to participate. The survey will be open until Tuesday 9 June.

The survey will take 15-20 minutes to complete depending on which sections are appropriate to you. All questions are optional except those required to route you to questions that are pertinent to your experience and circumstances.

You can access the survey here:

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BEIS_C-19_Impact_on_research

A short report will be published to share the findings and key themes Your responses will be aggregated before any reporting (no reporting will be done at individual or institutional level), and will be processed in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (GDPR) – please see the Data Privacy Notice. You do not have to identify yourself as part of your response but there is an option at the end of the survey to leave contact details if you are willing to participate in any follow-up research. Your contact details will be stored by Vitae separately from your other responses and purely for the purpose of any such re-contact.

Thank you for participating in this important evidence-collecting exercise on the impact of Covid-19.

We would be very grateful if you can also forward the survey link/invitation to other researchers in the UK to ensure we achieve a wide coverage as quickly as possible.

If you need further information about the survey or this project you can contact me at: janet.metcalfe@vitae.ac.uk

Best regards

Dr Janet Metcalfe

Head, Vitae