Exception process for essential research-related travel during COVID

This message was originally sent to faculty by vice-president academic and provost, James W. E. Rush.

• We are introducing an exception process to allow faculty members to apply for essential research travel during COVID-19 to conduct international sabbaticals or long-term research activities 
• We will not consider requests for exceptions for short-term travel 

 We recognize that in certain exceptional circumstances, faculty members may need to travel outside of Canada for a sabbatical or other long-term essential research work despite the ongoing restrictions to international travel during COVID-19.

Though the current suspension of University-sanctioned international travel remains in place, we are introducing an exception process to allow faculty members to apply for overseas sabbaticals or long-term research travel in circumstances that are truly exceptional.

The process to apply for exceptions to the ongoing suspension of international travel will apply to:  

• sabbaticals for an essential research-related purpose that cannot be postponed or conducted remotely due to truly unique opportunity considerations 
• travel for a substantial amount of time and/or a temporary relocation for several months to one location for an essential research-related purpose that cannot be postponed or conducted remotely due to truly unique opportunity considerations  

Requests for exceptions for short-term travel will not be considered.

In any instance, we will only grant exceptions when there is time to comply with all local and Canadian regulations regarding quarantine, isolation and COVID-19 testing.

If you wish to apply for an exception to travel, you must follow the steps we are providing on the COVID-19 Information website.

The Safety Abroad team in Waterloo International will manage this process on my behalf. Chairs/Directors and Deans must explicitly support the exceptional circumstances criteria for these requests to come forward to the team.

The process to review requests to travel will include review by the University’s travel safety and security provider, Anvil Group, and as necessary, Legal and Immigration Services to determine risk mitigation measures for the travel. I intend to review all complete applications taking these analyses into account. If approved, you will need to follow additional steps to complete safety plans and risk management documentation. If you intend to apply for an exception to travel you must plan to do so several weeks or months in advance and you must not incur any costs before you receive approval.

To be clear: our default position will remain as following the current government advice to avoid all non-essential travel. Exceptions to travel will only be granted in the most compelling circumstances related to essentiality, uniqueness of opportunity, and safety, security and risk mitigation.

I recognise that the process is somewhat onerous. This is appropriate considering the risks associated with non-essential international travel, our collective responsibility to limit the spread of COVID-19, and to limit the burden on health systems around the world. I very much hope that the news about vaccine efforts will mean we can begin to consider changes to this approach in the coming year.