Welcome to the final edition of the Research and Enterprise (R&E) newsletter for the academic year 2019/2020. And what a year it has been! None of us have had a year like this: my piece in the previous issue was on day nine of lockdown, and here I am writing this on day 120.
So much has happened in the space of four months.
Important announcements on the R&E front include a new REF2021 submission date and the fantastic news that we have retained the European Commission HR Excellence in Research Award, which is the culmination of lots of hard work by many over the past eight years.
As a university community, our civic response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been excellent. On the R&E side, we acted rapidly by setting up the COVID-19 Research Urgency Fund through which we have funded nine projects, including projects to study the medical archives and oral histories from the Spanish Flu pandemic, to explore correlations of grief as the COVID-19 crisis continues to unfold and to support the recovery of patients who have received intensive care treatment for COVID-19. The projects reflect the wonderful range of research our staff are engaged in and I look forward to hearing the outcomes of all of them.
Professor Tara Dean
Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise)