Research remains classified as an essential activity under the Tier 3 restrictions that came into force on Wednesday for Nottinghamshire. The steps we took in summer to make our buildings Covid-secure continue to protect our community and give us confidence in the safety of our on-campus research and teaching.

Please see our updated staff FAQs for more guidance on Covid-19.

Support for postgraduate research students
It is also important to stress our commitment to supporting postgraduate research students as an extraordinarily difficult year draws to a close.

While UKRI has provided an additional £63m funding to doctoral PGRs since April, we are acutely aware that this will not apply to everyone who is experiencing funding pressures at the moment. However, within a challenging financial situation, I have been leading work to identify how the University can extend financial support to more PGRs, and we will provide you with full details on this shortly.

Membership nominations for research strategy group
I am inviting colleagues to join the steering group helping to shape and develop our research strategy and define our priorities for research for the next few years. We want to give everybody the opportunity to be part of this exciting process and are looking for representatives in the following areas: technicians, research staff, early career researcher, academic, beacon or institute director, BAME and PGR representatives.

This group will represent our broad and diverse University community, and we will be asking you to advise on strategic direction, provide interfaces with your own stakeholder groups and facilitate consultation with sub-groups as necessary.

If you are interested, please fill in this form to let us know by 9 December. If successful, you will be invited to  monthly meetings, with the first planned for 16 December. We will aim to involve everybody expressing an interest in the steering group to take part in wider consultations.

Read Dame Jessica’s full research update.