Reflecting on research continuity
As fall quarter begins, we’ve been reflecting on our research continuity: health and safety, policy, compliance, students and postdocs, testing and exposure tracing, communications, and more. What is going well, what could be going better, and what actions are most important to take moving forward? We’ll share more on this in the next weekly update.
Testing update and dashboard
Some of you have been asking for a dashboard. As Fall Quarter begins, our testing processes are underway. Since the surveillance testing program began on August 31, there have been about 7,500 Verily tests (students) and 700 Color tests (faculty, staff, and postdocs) conducted on asymptomatic individuals so far, with one positive reported. The university has created a COVID-19 dashboard to track testing data within our community. The dashboard displays cumulative and weekly information about the number of tests and positives at Stanford, and similar metrics for Santa Clara County and California as a whole.
Revised in-person meeting policies
In a recent message, Russell Furr shared policy on current requirements for in-person meetings. For members of our research community, we want to emphasize that a meeting for work-related activities is not considered a “gathering,” which is under different restrictions by state guidelines. To summarize the main points, necessary university business meetings solely among Stanford employees unable to be conducted virtually are allowed. The new policy caps the number of outdoor meeting attendees at 15 and indoor meeting attendees at 10 or 25% of room capacity, whichever is less. Indoor meetings should follow local (e.g., departmental) restrictions on room capacity that may consider additional factors. A designated leader must be present to ensure compliance with all requirements and maintain a list of all attendees. Under the section on university-led academic activities, graduate students and postdocs may meet without faculty members in attendance, with the same requirement that a designated leader is responsible for ensuring compliance with all requirements and maintaining a list of all attendees. Outdoor advising and mentoring meetings are also allowed, with the same restrictions.
Policy on in-person training at shared facilities
Last week, the policy group approved a new policy on in-person training at shared facilities. Under the new policy, in-person training that cannot be performed remotely may be permitted, starting September 14. The following in-person scenarios may be permitted: orientation for new PIs, graduate students, and post docs; and on-site training for Stanford research on the use of equipment or advanced techniques. All training that can be performed remotely should continue to be performed remotely.
In-person human subjects research with children of Stanford affiliates
In-person, IRB-approved human subjects research with children of Stanford affiliates is now allowable, for Stanford affiliates who have been authorized to be on the same campus as the research facilities. Criteria that must be met include: the child and parent must be able to comply with safety and health requirements, studies must be limited in duration, and the parent is not allowed to bring the child to the workplace before or after the study session.
Backup personnel
We want to reiterate the importance of backup personnel for all lab roles and responsibilities. Further, no lab experiments should be run that can only be overseen by a single person. During the pandemic, personnel may be prevented from returning to the lab to attend to ongoing experiments, particularly if they are exposed or test positive for the virus. Other personnel in the lab must know how to safely maintain, attend to, or shut down the experiments in progress if this were to occur.
In the pipeline
The research policy working groups will be considering a number of issues throughout the Fall Quarter, including:
- how to support in-person training for new graduate students in lab rotations
- how to expand in-person clinical and non-clinical human subjects research to include more members of the Stanford community and beyond;
- how to expand access to offices to more members of the Stanford community; and,
- how to expand field research to include human subjects.
Stay safe and be well,
Kam, Stacey, Tim, and Russell
Kam Moler, Vice Provost and Dean of Research; Professor of Applied Physics and of Physics
Stacey Bent, Vice Provost of Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs; Jagdeep and Roshni Singh Professor of Engineering
Tim Stearns, Senior Associate Vice Provost of Research; Frank Lee and Carol Hall Professor of Biology and Professor of Genetics
Russell Furr, Associate Vice Provost for Environmental Health and Safety
