The Pirbright Institute has been announced as the winner of the Higher Education Business Continuity Network (HEBCoN) COVID-19 Pandemic Response (CPR) award.
The Institute is one of five winning organisations that were revealed at the recent HEBCoN conference. Awards were given for:
- Contribution to Sector – University of Leicester
- COVID-19 Pandemic Response (CPR) – The Pirbright Institute
- Incident Management – University of Sussex
- Innovation/Breakthrough – University of Sussex, IT Team
- Peer Award - Sarah Rowe King’s College London.
A further four institutions received commendations for their achievements in extraordinary times.
Pirbright’s award recognises the hard work and quick response of the Institute to the coronavirus outbreak. Over the last 18 months the Institute has continued to operate and deliver its critical research and Reference Laboratory services, providing testing and surveillance capabilities to UK government, World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Pirbright also contributed to and supported the UK national diagnostic testing response through donating diagnostic equipment as well as providing staff volunteers and diagnostic training.
The Institute faced the same public health emergency experienced by everyone globally, but on top of this Pirbright also found itself at the centre of a major conspiracy theory driven reputational crisis. By rapidly implementing a business continuity and incident management plan, the risks of reputational damage were managed and work at Pirbright was able to continue whilst maintaining a COVID-19 safe site.
Dr Andy White, Director of Risk and Assurance at Pirbright said:
“This award recognises the efforts of the workers who kept the Pirbright site running to achieve the business continuity the award celebrates. In particular it recognises the accomplishments of the Operations Capabilities Group, Recovery Working Group and Crisis Management Team members who delivered the response to the challenges the Institute faced. They, and their departmental colleagues, delivered the work packages that implemented our business continuity strategy.”
HEBCoN is a professional body and network of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK and Ireland who are committed to sharing and promoting good practice in Business Continuity Management (BCM), risk management and emergency planning.
