Continuity planning

Emergencies can disrupt UBC’s teaching, research, and operations. Continuity planning helps ensure that critical university services, such as teaching, research, and operations can continue for an extended period following an emergency or threat. This period may range from a few hours to several days, weeks, or even months. 

UBC’s activities often rely on specialized equipment, supplies, support services, and the expertise of our people. A breakdown or disruption in any of these areas can significantly impact academic, research, or operational activities. Prolonged failures may pose risks to human safety or cause significant harm to campus infrastructure and services.  

Continuity planning helps minimize certain exposures to risks that may impact the recovery and resumption process, including:

• The number of critical decisions required following a disaster or severe disruption 
• Single point of failure conditions within a unit 
• Reliance on specific individuals or teams to lead recovery process and efforts 
• Limited availability of staff with necessary skills to affect the recovery 
• The need to create, test, or modify procedures, programs or systems during recovery 
• The potential loss of data or transactions, recognizing that the loss of some transactions may be inevitable

Under UBC Policy SC10, Disaster Management, service units are responsible for conducting or delivering critical services to the university under the following conditions:

• Workforce disruption, where there are insufficient trained and skilled personnel available
• Workplace disruption, such as disruption of a business entity (office, teaching facilities, utilities)
• Disruption of IT services, where interruptions impact access to IT systems or platforms
• Supply chain disruption, where external issues affect the availability of critical products or services (external supplier, service provider, utility or logistic disruption)

Templates for continuity planning

UBC’s activities fall into three main areas—academic, operational, and research.

Please use the templates below to guide your continuity planning efforts:

For questions or concerns, please email ready.ubc@ubc.ca.