Dear Colleagues,

We hope all is well with you and your loved ones. As a result of the hard work of many faculty and staff, a wide range of laboratory-based research is now in the process of resuming. Many thanks to department chairs, center and institute directors, principal investigators, and staff in many offices for getting this first stage of research resumption underway with so much care for the health and safety of members of our community.

We recognize that there are many kinds of research that faculty conduct, including the use of archival materials, that cannot be conducted remotely. We are now ready to begin receiving and reviewing plans for a phased resumption of non-laboratory based research from departments, centers and institutes for this summer. Given the type of on-campus resources that most, if not all, of this type of research will require, the review process will be different from what was required for laboratories. However, as with laboratory-based research, all approved research plans must comply with the COVID-19 Workplace Safety Policy.

Chairs and directors who wish to submit a plan for review may do so online here. A small committee of leaders from the Office of the Provost, Office of the Vice President for Research, Environmental Health and Safety, University Human Resources, Department of Public Safety, Facilities Management and the Office of General Counsel and co-chaired by Deputy Provost Shankar Prasad and Chief Risk Officer Matthew Gagnon will review the plans and make recommendations to the two of us for final review and decisions.

In addition to ensuring compliance with the COVID-19 Workplace Safety Policy and confirming that the proposed research cannot be conducted remotely, the following priorities will guide plan reviews:

●      Research activities designated as essential under the March 15, 2020 Brown OVPR guidelines;
●      Research related to COVID-19 underway and approved as of May 15, 2020;
●      Research for which award conditions or proposal requirements necessitate that the research be given priority in order to satisfy and comply with award terms (e.g., contracts with strict, non-negotiable deadlines that would be missed if research does not restart; contracts or grants with inflexible spending requirements that necessitate resumption to maintain funding or meet award requirements; research required to meet an upcoming proposal deadline);
●      Research for which the risk of significant irrevocable loss is high if data collection or other work on campus is not continued or completed;
●      Research that affects timelines, opportunities and requirements for early-career researchers (e.g., graduate student projects for which the student is near to degree completion or a qualifying exam, or early-career faculty projects that are vital to the tenure process).

Finally, we recognize that individual faculty may require intermittent trips to offices and departmental spaces to retrieve archival materials, books and papers that are not accessible remotely, or that personal circumstances may require some faculty to spend some time working in their offices. All such requests should also be made by departments through the online review form.

Please note that plans must be submitted for any proposed on-campus activity to ensure adherence to social distancing policies and public health guidelines, compliance with the COVID-19 Workplace Safety Policy, and fulfillment of the requirement that all individuals complete the COVID-19 Workplace Safety Policy training and sign the required acknowledgment form before they return to campus.

We appreciate that these steps may feel burdensome. They are designed to ensure the health and safety of our campus community while creating opportunities for valuable research to continue. 

We look forward to working with you to move forward carefully and responsibly. If you have any questions, please write to [email protected].

Sincerely,

Richard M. Locke, Provost                 
Barbara Chernow, Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration