The mission of the School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) is to advance health without compromise through service, scholarship, science, and social responsibility. As a leading academic medical center, SMPH supports this mission by providing flexible, adaptable, and affordable facilities to accommodate the changing science and medicine goals of departments, multidisciplinary centers, institutes, and programs. Efficient and effective allocation of space will help shape the future of biomedical and public health research, academics, and the practice of medicine. This policy focuses on the types and amounts of space required by “wet lab” research activities in SMPH.
SMPH Facilities will create, maintain, and keep current processes for space requests, processes for modifications to space, guidelines for assignment of space, and metrics on efficient and effective use of space. These processes and guidelines will be consistent with UW policies and procedures and considered in light of the partnership with UW Health to ensure alignment on processes and guidelines. Departments, centers, institutes, or programs will develop their own space assignment plans with guidance and review by the dean/dean’s designee.
With reference to Article 6 of the policy, the SMPH dean’s office expects that the research activities of an individual principal investigator (PI) assigned wet laboratory space for that work will generate extramural grant support (144 and 133 funds) of $300 total direct costs/assignable square feet annually. As indicated in Article VI, this expectation will be reviewed periodically by the dean’s office and may be changed to account for the effects of inflation on grant expenditures and the overall availability of laboratory space within the school. Any change in the expectation will be communicated to department chairs and center directors for dissemination to principal investigators within their units.
The articles within the policy will be implemented beginning July 1, 2021, and with due consideration of the campus and school-mandated risk mitigation strategies to minimize transmission of COVID-19 that are required of all faculty, staff, and learners occupying SMPH research and office space. Strategies include social distancing, a minimum asf of laboratory research space per occupant, and a limit of one occupant in an office at any given time. Adherence to these strategies will likely delay full implementation of the policy until such time as risk mitigation in relation to COVID-19 is no longer necessary.
02-08-2021, 08-18-2012