Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research UPDATE – March 19, 2020, 4:25pm
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Please continue to reduce the number of people in your research programs on campus to limit the spread of COVID-19. Only essential research in your laboratories or research sites should be conducted at this time. OVCR will continue to support all research administrative services indefinitely but will immediately begin to reduce research support provided on campus.
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Dear Colleagues,
I am writing with an updated OVCR Research-Related COVID-19 Information for March 19, 2020. Please share this as needed with your faculty investigators. I will continue to provide you with updates as needed. Thank you for your resilience during this very dynamic situation.
Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research UPDATE – March 19, 2020, 4:25pm
The OVCR is recommending that every College continue to reduce the number of people in research programs on campus to limit the spread of COVID-19. Only essential research in laboratories or other research sites should be conducted at this time. The OVCR will continue to support all research administrative services indefinitely but will immediately begin to reduce research support provided on campus.
We have moved to end most Research Resource Center (RRC) services today in order to reduce the number of people in our core facilities and with the goal of completing most projects in process by the close of business today. Only critical research projects using RRC will be conducted at this time. If there is a need for services/projects exceptions, please request exemptions with a detailed explanation to jgroden@uic.edu and the Core Director.
While there is no standard definition for what is critical, these are some guidelines that may be helpful: COVID-19 research that has the potential to mitigate the spread of the pandemic; support for any biomedical research that if discontinued would endanger the lives of participants in research; and procedures that require timely and regular attention from a person to maintain critical laboratory infrastructure and experimental conditions. For example, providing animal support, maintaining equipment that requires gas, cryogenic service, monitoring irreplaceable cell lines, and other substantially similar treatments.
The Biologic Resources Laboratory (BRL) remains operational and will continue to provide animal research support for those projects already initiated; BRL will provide maintenance care indefinitely. In addition, BRL will remain accessible to PIs and laboratory personnel until further notice to carry out routine maintenance tasks. Researchers using BRL are advised that new orders and the initiation of new projects will be placed on hold. Please review updated information from BRL with new recommendations effective immediately.
The Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) remains fully operational and is closely monitoring guidance from Federal agencies and other research sponsors. An area of particular interest is the allowability of salary, stipend and benefit costs for those with effort on sponsored projects. Read more about this and other topics in the OSP FAQs released earlier today.
Best,
Joanna
Joanna Groden, PhD
Vice Chancellor for Research