Stages of protection

As part of our Business Continuity Plan (.pdf), the University has developed five operational levels under which it can function during the COVID-19 pandemic:

1. Advanced Protection where essential services only are delivered on campus.
2. Enhanced Protection with many functions delivered remotely, and other, limited services available safely on campus.
3. Sustained Protection providing measures that enable more elements of on-campus activity to resume than within Enhanced Protection and envisaged to be required over an extended time period.
4. Targeted Protection with protective measures continuing but limited to particular groups of individuals that may be especially vulnerable, or to particular activities that pose heightened levels of risk.
5. Steady State a new form of business as usual.

Current protection stage

The University is currently in the Steady State protection stage. 

This is our new form of business as usual. Steady state is the operational model where the risk to the University and its community is considered low enough to allow emergency COVID-related restrictions on campus to be lifted. Some of these arrangements will differ from those that were in place prior to the pandemic, to accommodate the continued existence of COVID-19 and potential future variants.

Moving between stages

The Business Continuity Plan plots in detail the actions we need to take to move the University between these levels of protection. The University can move between the levels of protection in a non-linear way, increasing and relaxing restrictions, or to nuance elements of its delivery across protection levels, in line with the external context.

Decisions to move the University into a new protection level are taken by the Vice-Chancellor following consultation with the Chair of Council and the Chair of Council’s Audit and Risk Management Committee, and are communicated to all members of the University.

You can find out more about the protection stages and how we move between them in our University's Business Continuity Plan (.pdf)

Reference guidance for our community

• COVID-19 Policy statement (.pdf)
• University of Essex premises policy (.pdf)
• Equality Impact Assessment for phased return to campus (.pdf)
• Equality Impact Assessment for home working and learning Advanced Protection, January 2021 (.docx)

Updates from the Vice-Chancellor

Read the latest updates from our Vice-Chancellor and senior members of staff on our Vice-Chancellor's blog.

• Student updates from the Vice-Chancellor
• Staff updates from the Vice-Chancellor