Research Continuity Plan

Research Expectations

All directors of research centers/laboratories and Principal Investigators (PIs) should immediately begin preparing for restricting on-campus research to activities only with minimal access to facilities for maintaining animals, unique reagents, and essential equipment and materials.

These restrictions will be disruptive to the scholarly activities and research productivity but are essential for the safety and health of everyone in the community. All researchers should plan to continue working on the grants and research projects remotely as much as possible and conduct meetings through WebEx and teleconferencing.

All research work involving human subjects must follow the social distancing protocols and suspend any in-person interactions minimizing the study-visits to absolutely essential needs. All changes to the research protocols still need to be reviewed and approved by the IRB except for changes necessary to eliminate immediate apparent hazards including those based on the risk of exposure to COVID-19. Changes implemented to eliminate immediate apparent hazards should be promptly reported to the appropriate IRB.

We will work together to minimize the potential disruptions and difficulties caused by the restrictions with on-campus activities and follow up with federal and other funding agencies as needed on the appropriate responses related to grant management and expectations. 

Research Lab Guidelines

The following guidelines should be strictly followed with immediate effect:

• Access to research laboratories should be limited to only essential personnel. If there are any individual necessary to be in the lab, social distancing protocols must be fully observed. Researchers who can work remotely must do so to continue research work to the extent possible.
• PI's should immediately identify essential research experiments that are at a critical phase, meaning that abandoning them would cause a major or irreversible loss in project viability. This high priority work should be a very limited set of the current laboratory bench-based experimentation.
• PI's should also identify experiments that can be ramped down, curtailed or delayed, and accomplish that process immediately.
• No new lines of research or experiments should be initiated at this time that require active and extensive use of lab resources in person.
• Disinfection of common laboratory areas and touch points (e.g., doorknobs, sink handles, freezer doors, telephones) with 70% ethanol should occur at least twice daily.
• Directors of research centers, laboratories and resources must develop appropriate plans to shut down equipment following due processes in case of university closure due to the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak. All PIs must also develop plans for maintaining laboratory viability (e.g. liquid nitrogen tank filling, animal support, maintaining shared computational equipment). Notify your departmental administrator as soon as possible about any issues related to laboratory facilities.  
• External visitors should not be allowed in labs at this time.
• Make sure you have access to contact information for your students, postdocs, and staff, and review contingency plans and emergency procedures within your group. 

Links to Agency-Specific Information

The following federal and agency guidelines should be reviewed to prepare plans to manage ongoing research grant activities.

Council on Governmental Relations

• COGR FAQs on COVID-19’s Impact on Federal Awards -Version 1 (March 12)
• Institutional and Agency Responses to COVID-19 and Additional Resources (March 10)

Office of Management and Budget

• Office of Management and Budget Memorandum M-20-11 (March 9)

Department of Energy (3/12/20)

• Department of Energy Letter Addressing Coronavirus (COVID-19) (March 12)

National Institutes of Health (3/12/20)

• Flexibilities Available to Applicants and Recipients of Federal Financial Assistance Affected by COVID-19
• FAQs on COVID-19  Flexibilities for Applicants and Recipients
• NIH LATE APPLICATION POLICY Due to Public Health Emergency for the United States for 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• General Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) - Proposal Submission and Award Management Related to COVID-19
• NIH Guidance on Travel and Meetings Hosted by NIH
• NIH Extramural Response to Natural Disasters and Other Emergencies

National Science Foundation (3/12/20):

• Coronavirus Information
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) for National Science Foundation (NSF) Proposers and Awardees
• Dear Colleague Letter:  Provisioning Advanced Cyberinfrastructure to Further Research on the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
• NSF Guidance for Major Facilities and Contracts Regarding COVID-19

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (3/10/20)

• Assistant Administrator for Procurement Message on Coronavirus

Research Administration and Compliance

The Office of Research will continue to provide assistance on proposal submissions, pre-award and post-award grant management, research compliance and operational protocols to the best of our abilities. It is expected that Streamlyne will remain operational for proposal submissions and the following email addresses will be monitored regularly:

• Pre-Award inquiries: srard@njit.edu
• Post-Award financial management: gca@njit.edu
• Institutional Review Board: irb@njit.edu
• Institutional Biosafety Committee: ibc@njit.edu

All other research-related inquiries during an emergency should be submitted via https://research.njit.edu/researchtechnology-inquiry 

Updates and university-wide resources in response to COVID-19 outbreaks are posted on the NJIT website https://www.njit.edu/coronavirus

If you have any questions related to research, please contact the Office of Research.

Atam P. Dhawan​
Senior Vice Provost for Research
dhawan@njit.edu