Students
- GRADUATE
- Prospective Students
- Current Students
The Freshman Research Initiative provides hands-on science experience.
Faculty & Research
- Faculty & Research Home
- Faculty
- Faculty Directory
- Honors & Awards
- More »
College of Natural Sciences is home to a number of nationally-recognized teachers and researchers.
Staff
Meet our award-winning staff.
Alumni
- blank-line
- Advisory Council
Read about members of our diverse and distinguished alumni community.
About
- Philanthropy
- Make a Gift

This page contains information for faculty and other researchers about UT's and CNS's multi-level approach to increasing research operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Office of the Vice President for Research announced the move to Research Level 0 on July 5, 2021. There are no workforce density limitations or restrictions on types of research conducted.

Please keep a few things in mind as your labs and research spaces return to full occupancy:

You must continue to maintain room and lab sign-in sheets, either digital or printed, for contact tracing purposes.
Notify the Occupational Health Program (OHP) if you or someone on your team has symptoms of COVID-19 or is tested for COVID-19.
Square footage social distancing is no longer required.
Follow campus meeting and event guidelines.
Domestic research travel no longer requires exceptions by deans or vice presidents. International travel is still prohibited unless exception is granted. Refer to campus travel guidelines for more information.
Masks are optional inside university buildings and outdoors but are still recommended for those who are not fully vaccinated or who have weakened immune systems.
As of Tuesday, June 1st, undergraduate researchers are no longer required to submit to proactive community testing (PCT) every two weeks as a condition of working in PIs’ research spaces.

Protect Texas Together

With the launch of the Protect Texas Together App for students, faculty and staff (available to download here), the CNS daily health attestation survey has been retired. The Protect Texas Together app is designed to help individuals track their symptoms each day and — based on those symptoms — indicate whether they are cleared to come to campus. While completely voluntary, use of the app is strongly encouraged for anyone coming to campus.

Here’s some information about how the Protect Texas Together App works:

Users can track their symptoms each day with the app, which can provide a daily campus pass for those without any major COVID-19 symptoms.
If the app’s algorithm determines that an individual may have COVID-19 based on the symptoms that person selected, the app will decline to provide a pass and instead direct the user to contact either University Health Services or UT Health Austin for guidance or testing. Faculty and staff members can also go to the provider of their choice.
Beyond daily symptom screening, the app allows users to easily and quickly log in and out of campus rooms (for contact tracing purposes), access local COVID-19 information and resources and connect their EID to a proactive community test ID, should they volunteer for asymptomatic testing.
The Room Check-In and History function will be used for contact tracing purposes in case there is an outbreak in your building, and we urge you and your staff to use it throughout the day. This is especially important for the common spaces shared among different labs (core facilities, instrument rooms, stockrooms, etc.).
For those without a smartphone, a phone-based survey application is also available by dialing 800-325-8903. This uses the same algorithm as the app to indicate whether a person is safe to come to campus, but works on any phone. The phone-based survey requires a unique access code, which is available here. Those without internet access or in need of further assistance should call the UT Service Desk at 512-475-9400
Campus visitors without EIDs can use this symptom-monitoring app developed by the CDC if they wish. community.

PROTECT TEXAS TOGETHER »

Links and Resources

PI Research Restart Toolkit	Policies, best practices, and a checklist for resuming research operations in your lab.

UT Research Restart Plan and Phases	Current Level: 0. Normal, full-capacity research activity has resumed on site.

Research Restart FAQs	Answers to frequently asked questions regarding research restart.

Lab Sign-in Sheet Template	Sign-in template to capture critical information for contact tracing

VPR Research Restart	Visit VPR's Research Restart page for more information and resources.

CNS Research Restart