Field Research Safety

Before You Go

1. Book an appointment with Student Health for a Travel Consult at least 4 weeks before your trip, and learn about recommended vaccines and prescription medicines based on your destination and activities. Group consultations for field trips are available. Choose Schedule an Appointment, Travel Services, Travel Consult and follow the booking steps.
   https://studenthealth.sa.ucsb.edu/medical-services/primary-care-services/travel-health
2. The best practice is to develop a Field Safety Plan; a completed Field Safety Plan is required to borrow equipment from EH&S. 
3. Complete training:
   • Complete the Heat Illness Prevention Training available on the UCSB Learning Center.
   • The best practice is to get trained in Field First Aid or Wilderness Medicine.
4. If your field site is within the US, your US health insurance will be your primary medical insurance for any emergency treatment. If the field site is outside the US, your primary medical coverage will be the UC Travel Insurance. For travel outside of California, register your travel in the UC AWAY system to receive travel alerts from UC’s security partner Crisis24.  
5. Students and volunteers must sign a Waiver of Liability.

2025 UC Field Research Safety Leadership Training Series

Series Schedule and Registration
First session on Tuesday, 02/11/2025, from 11:00 am - 12:30 pm PST

The series features timely, challenging workshops with opportunities to discuss scenarios, practice skills, and plan for specific field projects and settings. 
Content from past events is compiled in the UC Field Safety Leadership Training Library. 

Safe and Inclusive Fieldwork

The National Science Foundation (NSF) requires plans for safe & inclusive off-campus and off-site research. A written plan is required per the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) 23-1 for NSF-funded research; see NSF PAPPG (2023)

The plan must describe how the following types of behavior will be addressed:

• Abuse of any person, including, but not limited to, harassment, stalking, bullying, or hazing of any kind, whether the behavior is carried out verbally, physically, electronically, in written form; or
• Conduct that is unwelcome, offensive, indecent, obscene, or disorderly.

Action Required: PI/s need to sign and submit a plan to the Sponsored Projects Office (SPO) before SPO will approve the proposal being submitted to NSF. Contact SPO for additional information on this plan.

Additional resources & training is available to promote safe and inclusive field experiences. The UC Fieldwork Toolkit Leadership Training Series features topics on preventing harassment in the field, creating safe learning environments, promoting safe fieldwork culture for diverse researchers, and more. 

New in 2025! The ADVANCEing FieldSafety course provides team leaders and participants with the skills and tools to build a welcoming and inclusive field culture. This course will help you and your team develop norms and codes of conduct, and review or clarify leadership and field team organization. Additionally, you and your team will learn how to identify unsafe and harmful behaviors, respond appropriately to dissipate and mitigate these behaviors, and support those impacted by the behaviors. Finally, the course will provide tools to create, build and support inclusive mentorship, consider additional factors for mitigating risk to diverse individuals in the field, and how to build cultural inclusivity within your team. ADVANCEing FieldSafety provides tools to address a growing awareness of the challenges of working (far) away from support networks and resources traditionally found at home. ADVANCEing FieldSafety is designed for every member of research teams operating in field environments, from seasoned academics, technical support staff to undergraduates.
9-hour, 3 module course on Coursera