UAB OFFICE OF RESEARCH GUIDANCE UPDATE (04/06/2020)

The UAB Office of Research is committed to the health and safety of faculty, staff, students, patients, and research participants, while ensuring our research community is informed of critical changes to operations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. UAB’s Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update webpage remains the definitive source of information about the University’s guidance and should be visited regularly. The UAB Office of Research’s COVID-19 Guidance webpage is updated regularly to provide the UAB research community additional information.

Faculty leading research groups and facilities are responsible for managing smooth and safe operations in a disrupted environment. As of now, there are no plans to close research laboratories, but faculty and Departments/Schools should limit in-person scholarship to essential research.

In addition to adhering to this guidance, researchers must follow any additional School/College-specific directives. In general, access to on campus laboratories should be ramped down and minimal, other than as noted below:

Essential, Permitted Research Activities (On-Campus, In-Person)

• In-person, COVID-19 research that has the potential to mitigate the pandemic.
• In-person, human subjects research that MUST be conducted for the participants’ health and well-being (determined by the Principal Investigator, participant, study sponsor and participants’ healthcare providers).
  • This includes prohibition of in-person study visits that are not mandatory for the participants’ health and well-being even when the participant is present for essential medical care.
  • All monitoring and site initiation visits for all clinical studies need to continue to be conducted remotely.
  • Any in-person study visits will need to follow appropriate screening guidelines, which were outlines in “COVID-19 UAB Guidance for Clinical Research: Participant and Sponsor Interactions” issued on March 18, 2020. It is important to follow all guidance of the CDC when in public, including the newer recommendation of the use of cloth face coverings (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html)
• On campus, laboratory procedures requiring timely and regular attention to maintain critical laboratory infrastructure and experimental conditions. For example, these may include:
  • Essential care for animals, plants and unique or expensive cell cultures or biological specimens that would otherwise be lost,
  • Preservation of unique reagents and other unique or expensive research materials,
  • Maintaining instruments and equipment (e.g., liquid nitrogen and liquid helium systems, and shared computational clusters) that cannot be maintained remotely or shut down without significant cost or consequences to the research effort, and
  • Studies in progress that must be completed in order to avoid catastrophic data loss;
• On-campus, laboratory studies that do not require interventions or interactions with human subjects and are needed for a thesis or dissertation defense during the 2020 Spring or Summer terms or the completion of studies for postdoctoral fellows who are within 3 months of an end of an appointment or fellowship funding that do not require interventions or interactions with human subjects. See the approval process for continuation of graduate student or postdoctoral fellows below.
• Exceptions may be granted on an extremely limited basis by submitting a written request for sequential approval to the Chair, Dean, and Vice President for Research. The request should include a description of the essential nature of the research and a detailed plan for promoting the safety of all personnel, including social distancing, laboratory layout, shift work possibilities, etc.

Other Permitted/Encouraged Research Activities

• Any research activities that can be conducted remotely or virtually, including the initiation of new projects, are encouraged and can proceed with required local scientific and institutional regulatory/sponsored award approvals, when applicable. Examples include the following:
  • Data processing/analysis
  • Survey research conducted via the web or telephone
  • Proposal writing
  • Publication and abstract composition and review
  • Patent applications
  • Grant and proposal reviews
  • Virtual focus groups
  • Research/laboratory administrative meetings
• New non-essential studies can be submitted for scientific, sponsored award, regulatory and/or budgetary review.
• Some research projects may involve sensitive and protected data that have security controls mandated by the sponsor, policy, or federal law (examples: HIPAA, FERPA, Export-controlled, etc.). If your project is subject to a data security plan that precludes remote access, contact your Department, School/College, or UAB IT security administrator.