COVID-19 Outbreak and its Impact on Queen's University Research

Updated December 17, 2020

A structure and response protocols to guide the controlled slowing of the research enterprise in response to COVID-19 incidents has been developed. Central to the planning, with due consideration to risk and public health guidance, is supporting the continuity of research.

More about Continuity of Research Planning

Updated August 26, 2020

As you are aware, we have had a Research Impact Committee that has been approving various aspects of the research start-up process. When we moved to Priority 2 research requests, approvals were delegated to the Faculties with approvals for field research and research involving human subjects remaining under the purview of the committee. We are now at a point where it is appropriate for field research and research involving human subjects to be approved at the Faculty level.

The Research Impact Committee is now morphing to a Research Response Team which will be preparing various response plans and communications to support the appropriate continuity of research in the event of an outbreak. We will continue to consult with Faculties in the development of these plans.

Please contact your Associate Dean of Research or Department Head if you have any questions or concerns. 

For details on the process for requests, please see the full, updated message online.

Public Health and Building Preparation Guidance FAQ for Research Priority Timeline 1 and 2 have been made available to assist faculty, unit heads, and building managers/officials in preparing for on-site research facility start-up following approval of a research access request.

As part of the national effort to address the COVID-19 Crisis, the Federal Office of the Science Advisor is establishing an expert community of Canadian COVID-19 researchers, clinical collaborators, and healthcare stakeholders from across the country. Please see cancovid.ca to learn more. The community will be hosted on Slack, a collaboration hub developed to facilitate communication and the sharing of information. The top research intensive universities in Canada, the U15, to which we belong, are encouraged to invite qualified researchers to join the platform and participate in the collaborations. Themes for collaboration include the following:

1. Diagnostics
2. Clinical trials
3. Fundamental Science
4. Vaccines & Therapeutics
5. Indigenous research
6. Social and behavioural sciences
7. Healthcare
8. Modelling
9. Cohort Studies

For those of you who participated in our recent survey on COVID-19-related research conducted at Queen’s, we intend to use those results to initiate the invitation list. If you are currently conducting research on COVID-19 or its impacts, or believe that you have skills that might be valuable to the themes identified above, and did not participate in the survey or wish to re-iterate your interest, please send an email to research@queensu.ca. Please provide a brief biography and ½ page description of your COVID-19 related interests/research (i.e. the theme you might fit into) in your email and we will reply. Please note that the invitations we provide will be vetted by the CanCOVID team to ensure suitability in all cases. The invitation process opened today, so if you are interested, please be in contact as soon as possible.