The COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented global challenge. The Royal Society of Chemistry has identified a number of opportunities for chemical scientists to help:

Volunteer your lab or academic skills

If you have an academic background or experience within a lab environment, find out how you can contribute here.

How you can help

Laboratory staff

If you have lab skills that could be deployed in the Government’s National Testing Programme, you can apply for Laboratory Support Worker.

PhD candidates (and higher)

If you have an academic background (PhD candidate or higher), you can sign up as a rapid reviewer for the UK’s Royal Society registered reports.

Share COVID-19 data, reagents and expertise

If you can share data, reagents or expertise relating to COVID-19 research, find out how you can help.

How you can help

COVID-19 Data Portal

The COVID-19 Data Portal has been created to facilitate data sharing and analysis. Submit your data on sequencing, proteins, gene & protein expression and structural data.

COVID-19 Protein Portal

The COVID-19 Protein Portal has been created to accelerate COVID-19 research by sourcing key reagents from leading UK protein production laboratories.

COVID-19 preclinical drug development database

The COVID-19 preclinical drug development database has been created by The Academy of Medical Sciences to help researchers identify collaborations, share expertise, materials and methods, avoid duplicating effort and prioritise the most promising research.

COVID-19 Outbreak Expert Database

Supply equipment, testing methods and laboratory capacity

Efforts are being co-ordinated by the Government as well as other organisations.

How you can help

Supply consumables and equipment for coronavirus testing

If you can supply consumables and equipment for coronavirus testing, provide new or existing types of coronavirus tests for antigens or antibodies, or offer laboratory capacity, the Government wants to hear from you.

Volunteer your business or organisation

Organisations wanting to offer support in the way of medical equipment and PPE (among other things) are asked to contact the Government. PPE donation is also being coordinated by the Health Service Executive in Ireland and by the University of Cambridge.

Respond to funding calls

Explore the funding opportunities on offer to support projects that address the COVID-19 crisis. 

How you can help

UKRI – research and innovation ideas to address COVID-19

UKRI will support excellent proposals to address COVID-19 (12-18 months duration, funding for 80% of the full economic cost, apply at any time).

Deadlines on all open UKRI-funding opportunities will be extended to give applicants more time to submit their applications. These extensions will be managed on a case by case basis. 'No-cost' extension requests to grants impacted by coronavirus will be allowed. More information is available here.

Other relevant funding calls are regularly becoming available. Please keep an eye on our social media channels, where we will communicate calls as they are announced.

Help friends, family, neighbours and your local community

Read the Government guidelines on how you can help others, especially people near you in isolation, and importantly, how to do this safely.

Find out more

Find support

How we can help you find the support, resources and guidance you need, from the RSC and other organisations.

 

Our response

Our global response to the COVID-19 outbreak

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