Ensuring that research or transfer projects that cannot be delayed and require work in laboratories can continue to develop is the objective of the access protocol to these facilities established by the University. The measure establishes that access must be carried out in turns, with a single person in each department and aims to avoid “a complete stop in the research”, as the vice rector Belén Rojizo highlights.
“We have been confined for more than 40 days and the research staff needs to continue with their projects and contracts with companies”, the vice rector for research stresses, who acknowledges that access to the laboratories is a demand that the research staff was making “in a timely manner and individually”, also taking into account that many “experimental works represent continuous series, some of many years” for which a stop would mean losing “a lot of relevant information”. Through this protocol, access can be carried out in an “organized way”, in shifts of a maximum of four hours, that allow “adequate cleaning and disinfection” between them, and with a single person per unit, in such a way that “the risk of contagion is minimal or null”, Rojizo says.
Access to laboratories and offices
The aimed is to ensure the safety and health of people who come to work in the University spaces during the alarm state, it is the object of a protocol that establishes the access request procedure that, weekly, the main researcher of the project must transfer the deaneries and addresses of their centers, which in turn will forward them to the office of the vice rector for research. The same procedure, in this case sent to the office of the vice rector for academic planning and teaching, will also apply to teachers with difficulties in connection to the internet who must promptly access their offices to guarantee an appropriate non-face-to-face teaching. In both cases, the permits must take into account the establishment of two shifts of a maximum of four hours, which could mean, Rojizo acknowledges, “that could involve that in those centers that demand a lot of assistance there will be researchers who cannot access them every day.”
Gradual reinstatement with alarm status
The protocol “will be reviewed and expanded once the alarm state is over, with a progressive reinstatement being planned and trying to keep teleworking as long as possible, for at least two months”, following the recommendations established by the Government. “What is clear is that we are not going to be able to return all of a sudden to the laboratories”, Rojizo admits, who sees in this measure “a first step for de-escalation, which will be gradual and progressive”.
Source: DUVI