6.03 Hosting Inspections of UGA Facilities and Laboratories by Outside Agencies

The property, facilities, and operations of the University of Georgia (UGA) are subject to announced and unannounced inspection by outside federal, state, and local regulatory agencies responsible for enforcing environmental, health, and safety regulations. It is the policy of UGA to comply with all relevant regulations and to cooperate with the agencies responsible for compliance inspections and enforcement. To ensure compliance in executing our mission, UGA expects regulatory inspections to be conducted safely and professionally, with excellent communication and transparency with outside agencies and their representatives and with all UGA stakeholders.

This policy requires that each inspector of the outside agency assessing compliance with federal, state, or local regulations be accompanied by at least one authorized UGA employee at all times during the inspection of any UGA space (property, facility, or lab). The authorized UGA employee must represent either the Environmental Safety Division (ESD) or the Office of Research Safety (ORS). 

Any UGA employee receiving a request from a representative of an outside environmental, health, or safety regulatory agency for access to any UGA owned or operated property or facility for the purpose of conducting a compliance inspection must immediately notify the Environmental Safety Division at (706) 542-5801 and provide the following information: employee name, department, location and phone number; the agency official's name and affiliation; and the stated purpose of the visit and time of arrival. ESD will notify the employee’s Department Head/Dean or their Administrative and Operations Unit Head/Director, as applicable. ESD also will notify and coordinate with ORS to provide an authorized University representative who will meet the agency official in a timely manner and determine the appropriate response to the request for access.

ESD and ORS may cooperatively or separately develop and implement a standard operating procedure to host inspections of UGA facilities that is consistent with this policy.