The Society has been monitoring the ongoing COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic, and we wanted to provide an update on the action The Society is taking. We are following advice from the UK Government, in particular the announcement made on 16 March. In the current climate the health, safety and wellbeing of our members, staff and wider community is our key concern, and we have put a proactive plan in place to ensure that we are taking reasonable steps to protect this, and reduce risk to staff, members, or those attending our meetings, while continuing our services. We will continue to respond as Government advice changes, but as of 17 March these are the measures we have put in place:
Conferences – We have postponed our upcoming conference ‘Processing and Modulation of Sensory Signals: From the Periphery to the Cortex’. The intention is that this meeting will now go ahead in Spring 2021. We are keeping our conferences later in the year under review and currently intend to deliver our programme as planned. We are paying close attention to advice issued by the UK Government.
Member services – In order to keep our staff safe and contribute towards efforts to reduce transmission of the disease, all staff are now working remotely. Our systems enable us to continue to provide day-to-day Member services, with phone calls and emails answered as normal.
Committee meetings – We are ensuring these continue as planned and these will take place online using phone and video conferencing. We have stopped all face-to-face meetings to reduce all travel and are using video conferencing software instead.
Free research access – We are determined to play our part in the scientific community’s response to this crisis. We are working with our publisher, Wiley, to make relevant COVID-19 journal articles free to access. Wiley has already made more than 5,000 COVID-19-related articles freely available. Last month, Wiley joined Wellcome Trust in the commitment to ensuring rapid access to COVID-19 research.
Public communications – The Society has a wealth of experts working in areas related to coronavirus. Our communications team is working on delivering reliable, evidenced scientific insight on this disease through social media, video and our media work. Please keep an eye on our Twitter feed @thephysoc for the latest information.