ERF and CERIC: COVID-19 Pandemic effects on the Working Practices of Analytical Facilities II

ERF and CERIC have developed and published a report on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the working practices of 27 analytical Research Infrastructures.
COVID-19 has a substantial impact on the operations of analytical facilities that serve external users. At the end of April 2020, only a third of the surveyed research infrastructures (RIs) reported that they maintained such user access activities; however, several had set up specific COVID-19 services and responded to travel limitations with a strong shift towards remote services. Half a year later, the pandemic is still not over, and the significant mutations of the virus observed recently indicate that COVID-19 is likely to remain endemic for the foreseeable future. RIs, as a consequence, will have to learn how to live with it to some degree, possibly for years to come. The questionnaire utilized for this paper aimed to report on the changes and challenges that analytical facilities faced at the end of October 2020, just before the rise of the second wave, which again severely interrupted their activities.

To read more about the conclusions of the report, please click here.

Download the full report here in Zenodo platform.