Research School Irregular

Following on from the latest message from Professor Nalin Thakkar, Chair of the Campus Reopening and Corporate Support Group, I am writing to update you on actions taking place within our Faculty to safely reopen more of our buildings and facilities for research activity and teaching preparation.

In line with Government guidance, we are now commencing a phased reopening of our buildings for some research activities, the schedule of which is provided below. This order for opening of the buildings has been approved by the Faculty Leadership Team (FLT) taking into account the following:

• Buildings with shared facilities to maximise the benefits to staff and postgraduate students.

• Buildings currently in use for COVID-related research and activities.

• Buildings that have already had essential work undertaken during the lockdown.

• Buildings where social distancing is simpler to introduce.

I would like to emphasise the low occupancy of the buildings when they are being reopened. Thereafter, the buildings will be opened in a staged manner and how this is to be done is being discussed in the departments and institutes.  The length of time between the stages will depend on all the factors indicated below.  Business engagement will be communicating the progress of reopening to our major research funders and I will ask them to provide guidance to PIs for when they are talking with their partners.  I would also like to emphasise that the schedule of opening does not reflect the importance of the research activity as judged by FLT but for the reasons given here. 

I understand the desire to return to our laboratories and workshops so you can continue your research, but our priority is to ensure our working environments are as safe as possible for staff and research students. As well as building safety issues, such as flushing and cleaning of water systems, checking of fume hoods and ensuring lifts are operational, there is also a huge piece of work that needs to take place to establish how we are going to work in the facilities that will be opened, ensuring we comply with Government guidelines.

I am grateful to colleagues who have been developing plans to implement social distancing in our laboratories. However, we also need to establish a more frequent cleaning regime that must be carried out throughout the day. This has - and is - requiring a significant amount of time to organise and, in discussion with Estates and Facilities colleagues, we are working to ensure we have sufficient staff to be able to perform these duties across all of the buildings and facilities that will be re-opened.

Our Departments and Institutes have been developing risk assessments and these will need to be signed-off, along with the University’s new checklists to ensure that the buildings/laboratories are safe.

It is also necessary to plan how supplies will be delivered and develop a process for how staff can access essential equipment in other buildings. Adopting a phased approach will allow us to prepare the buildings, increase the number of cleaning staff available and also to ensure we continue to learn and develop appropriate new ways of working as we reopen.

We also need to take into consideration the staffing required to get facilities and equipment safely back on-line and manage their on-going operation. This may involve bringing staff back from furlough leave, planning how we protect colleagues who may be vulnerable or live with someone who is vulnerable, as well as taking into consideration other factors that are impacting our work and home lives such as caring responsibilities, homeschooling and how we travel to and from campus. To support this, each member of staff and each research student who is coming onto campus will need to complete and sign a self-declaration form to state that they are fit and able to work.

With all the above being taken into consideration I am pleased to say that we are now in a position to partially open phase one and then phase two buildings and facilities. I cannot give you a definitive timeline for the reopening as timescales are fluid and dependent upon many internal and external variables, but I wanted to share which buildings we will begin to reopen in each phase. Please note that in all cases, only a small number of areas will initially be reopened within each building and then only for fewer than 20 people in the first instance.

Phase one

• More areas within the John Garside Building (MIB)

• Jodrell Bank’s Mark II Telescope

Phase two

• The Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC)

• Chemistry Building

• Electron Microscopy Suite (MSS tower)

Phase three

• Pariser Building

• Alan Turing Building

• The National Graphene Institute

Phase Four

• George Begg

• Ferranti Building

• Williamson Building

• Simon Building

Phase five

• Dalton Nuclear Facility (Cumbria)

• Schuster Building

• The Mill

Phase six

• Sackville Street Building

• Morton Laboratory

• MSS Tower

• Sir Henry Royce Institute

Phase seven

• James Chadwick Building

• James Lighthill Building

• Information Technology

• Kilburn Building

Phase eight

• MECD Pilot Space Building

• The Firs (Fallowfield)

 

Once facilities are open, only colleagues who need to go into the research facilities to work will be allowed access. All writing up, data analysis and non-laboratory work should continue to be done remotely and all meetings will need to continue to be on-line for the foreseeable future.

Alongside the phased reopening for research, we are also reviewing what facilities could be temporarily opened to allow for demonstrations to be filmed to support online teaching during 2020/21 Semester One. I will update you on this in due course.

Our phased approach, planning and preparation work is being coordinated as part of the University’s Campus Reopening and Corporate Support Project. We will be providing regular updates on this through the FSE Open Meetings and Beeline, the Faculty’s weekly newsletter which is emailed to all staff every Friday.

In addition to the phased reopening of buildings, we have been developing a managed process by which staff and students can access buildings to collect items which will enable them to work from home more effectively. Our hope is that this will be ready to roll out in the next week.

There is a tremendous amount of work taking place to ensure that the campus is a safe place to work when you do return and I would like to thank you for your continued flexibility, hard work and patience.