Anyone working as a researcher at a university?

[twiglet123]

What are you doing regarding COVID? I have just applied for a role as a research assistant and am wondering how much time it’s likely I could be in the university, or will I mainly be working from home? The role is in health and will mainly involve data collection (in the community) and analysis.

My university still doesn't know. A lot is going to be done from home -- any work where it isn't strictly necessary to be in person (like wet labs, etc) are being done from home. But then DH is a lecturer and has been told he can choose whether to teach in person or not, so it's going to be a mish mash and I get the impression nothing is set in stone yet.

I work as an RA in public health. We are strongly discouraged from ever being physically on campus & that will continue until further notice. My guess is you'll overwhelmingly WFH, OP. Enquire carefully about how they will support WFH, such as what kind of laptop & chair they will supply, etc.

Thank you both. WFH actually suits me better as otherwise it’s a 1 hour commute. But you are right about equipment I will certainly check that.

our university labs are still closed. we have a couple of people going in to restart research but 90% of the research team are wfh. People doing data analysis are 100% wfh.

Me too - my job (humanities) was made permanent last year, thank God. Like everyone else, I'd expect to be WFH unless the role is critical. Mind you, I'd resigned myself back in March to not being back in the office for at least twelve months...

I work in a lab. We are all back full time for experiments but offices are closed - so we go in to collect data only. For me and my team this is every day, for others less so. We have strict rules re distancing and so on and have to wear masks of course. All analysis has to be done at home.

@parietal

our university labs are still closed. we have a couple of people going in to restart research but 90% of the research team are wfh. People doing data analysis are 100% wfh.

I can’t believe your labs are still closed! In the UK? Our funding bodies expect us back - they are all giving a max 6 months extension of grants, for example. I thought everywhere had re opened

I only really need a computer as most of what I do is programming/ writing etc (signal processing).
We're WFH at the moment and have been told we will be until at least the end of the year. Students in our department are having face-to-face labs but lectures are online.