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Shared Core Facilities – National and International Models lisavr report

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Shared Core Facilities – National and International Models Abridged version

Prepared by:

Tina Trofer office@geradeheraus.at www.geradeheraus.at

Life Science Austria Vienna Region Life Science Austria Vienna Region is committed to the continuing successful development of biotechnology, medical technology and pharmaceuticals in the Vienna Region. Whether as a researcher, a business or an investor, whether located in Austria or abroad, this is where you will find all of the important services and contacts under one roof.

April 2010

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Foreword Life sciences research is increasingly dependent on expensive equipment and the highly trained specialists required for its operation. This requires a new strategy for the entire research infrastructure, to create and support the international shared core facilities and technology platforms that are needed. The trend towards shared research infrastructure is encouraged not only by economic pressures, but also by a new focus in research activities on smaller groups with more interdisciplinary cooperation. In Austria the first steps in this direction are the plans for bundling the necessary competences in the state-of-the-art core facilities of the Vienna Biocenter (VBC).

The goal of Life Science Austria Vienna Region (LISA VR) is to optimise the structural and economic environment for the life sciences sector and to provide businesses and institutions in the region with the best possible conditions for innovation and growth. In addition to consultancy, education and training, local support services and marketing, one of its ongoing tasks is to provide the inspiration and incentives for creative thinking and change, and to highlight new approaches to future market developments.

We are firmly convinced that shared core facilities and technology platforms to be used equally for business and scientific purposes will be standard features in the universities and research institutes of tomorrow. There is every indication that core facilities will in future constitute a major instrument of regional policy. Enterprises will locate their facilities wherever the best research infrastructure for their projects is to be found.

The purpose of the present study is to select from among the numerous different examples of shared core facilities to be found in Europe those that best highlight current developments and trends, and to identify the various models adopted. There have been no such studies in Europe so far, and we are pleased to be breaking new ground and contributing significantly to making what is known about core facilities more readily available. Our sincere thanks go to all the experts who have shared their experiences with us.

Mag. Eva CZERNOHORSZKY

Dr. Michaela FRITZ

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Contents

1. Summary ............................................................................................................................................................. 6 2. Analysis of interviews .......................................................................................................................................... 7 2.1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................................... 7 2.2. Profiles of organizations and universities......................................................................................................................... 8 2.3. Profiles of interest groups and institutions ..................................................................................................................... 14 2.3. Analysis of interviews .................................................................................................................................................... 16 Question 1: Do the core facilities have a thematic focus?...................................................................................................... 16 Question 2: What core facilities are maintained?................................................................................................................... 16 Question 3: Who uses the core facilities, and how much? ..................................................................................................... 17 Question 4: What kinds of services are offered? ................................................................................................................... 18 Question 5: How are your core facilities organised? .............................................................................................................. 20 Question 6: Are the individual core units ISO certified? ......................................................................................................... 21 Question 7: How many staff are employed in the core facilities, and what is their educational background? ......................... 22 Question 8: What are the responsibilities and decision-making authority of core facility managers and heads? .................... 22 Question 9: What is the educational level of core facility heads?........................................................................................... 23 Question 10: When were the core facilities established? ....................................................................................................... 25 Question 11: How are the core facilities financed? ................................................................................................................ 25 Question 12: Which user fee model is used? ........................................................................................................................ 27 Question 13: Are you happy with the capacity utilisation of the core facilities? ...................................................................... 28 Question 14: What are the rules and policies governing use? ............................................................................................... 29 Question 15: How do you reserve time on the machines? ..................................................................................................... 29 Question 16: What in your view are the key success factors for a core facility?..................................................................... 30 Question 17: Can you identify best practice examples of core facilities? ............................................................................... 31 Question 18: How do you see core facilities developing in the years to come? ..................................................................... 31

3. European initiatives for laboratory infrastructures.............................................................................................. 33 Alma in Silico – INTERREG Project ...................................................................................................................................... 33 BioCT – European project ..................................................................................................................................................... 33 ERA-INSTRUMENTS ........................................................................................................................................................... 34 FASILIS – Facility Sharing in Life Sciences........................................................................................................................... 34 SHARE project...................................................................................................................................................................... 35

4. Further reading .................................................................................................................................................. 36

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01. Summary Geradeheraus Consulting was commissioned by Life Science Austria Vienna Region (LISA VR) to conduct a study on “Shared Core Facilities – National and International Models�, using interviews with experts to find out how different models of shared core facilities function, and on this basis to develop recommendations for the facilities in Vienna. This abridged report summarises the results of the study.

Qualitative information was collected in a survey: the experts were asked to describe their core facilities or technology platforms and to give details of research focuses, organisational structures, funding and management.

Current trends and developments all clearly suggest that facilities of this kind are set to grow in number and increase in importance in the research environment. Almost all the people interviewed were in favour of an expert survey on shared core facilities, and have expressed lively interest in the results.

In this study, shared facilities or resources mean those that provide access to technologies, services and scientific consultation and that encourage scientific interaction and productivity. The focus of the study is on core facilities that, in addition to their own university, are used by other academic institutions and businesses.

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02. Analysis of interviews 2.1. Introduction To provide the basis for the study, between November 2009 and January 2010 21 interviews were conducted with experts from the life sciences on the subject of core facilities. A total of 15 different universities and organizations in Europe and Israel were included in the survey. Of the managers involved, 14 were responsible for more than one core facility or technology platform; one expert headed a core facility specialising in sequencing. Two of the core facility platforms, Biocenter Innsbruck and ZMF Graz, are Austrian.

Six other interviews were with interest groups such as the Association of Clinical Research Centers of German universities (ACRC), Toronto Region Research Alliance in Canada, the American National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) and network platforms such as Tools of Science in Sweden and Harvard Catalyst in the USA. These interviews did not make use of a questionnaire.

The experts were selected jointly with LSA VR. One of the criteria for selection was that the core facilities should serve a variety of user groups, including start-ups in particular. In making the choice, both existing contacts and new recommendations were taken into account. Some institutes, such as GIGA, Genopole, IZKF MĂźnster and KIGene were included in the study additionally, on the recommendation of other interviewees. In selecting the universities and organizations, importance was attached to including a wide range of different models and approaches to the subject. This study does not claim to present a list of best practice examples, even though some of the core facilities would certainly fall into this category. The facilities presented can at best provide an overview of the different models to be found in Europe. The analysis was not intended as an evaluation, far less as any form of ranking. There are many outstanding institutions in Europe where for shortage of time no interview was possible. Table 1 gives the details of the people contacted.

Happily, the interest in this research project and the motivation to participate were high. Several participants underlined the importance of such a study for Europe, and warmly welcomed LISA VR’s initiative, not least because close collaboration across European national borders was predicted to be a major trend in the development of core facilities.

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Table 1: Participating experts (in alphabetical order of institutions) #

Institution

Country

Expert

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Barcelona Science Park - PCB

ES

Jesus Purroy

2

Biocenter Innsbruck

AT

Lukas Huber

3

Biogenouest

FR

Celine Queron

4

Bioindustry Park Canavese SpA

IT

Fabrizio Conicella

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European Molecular Biology Laboratory EMBL Heidelberg

DE

Christian Boulin

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Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne EPFL Lausanne

CH

Harald Hirling

7

Genopole

FR

Nanceur Tounekti

8

Groupe Interdisciplinaire de Génoprotéomic Appliquée - GIGA

BE

Catherine Sadzot

9

Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência - IGC

PT

Nuno Moreno

10

Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Klinische Forschung IZKF Münster

DE

Rita Naskar

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KIGene Core Facility, Karolinska Institut

SE

Annika Eriksson

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Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine MDC Berlin-Buch

DE

Christina Quensel

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Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics - MPI-CBG

DE

Ivan Baines

14

Weizmann Institute of Science - WIS

IL

Chaim Kahana

15

Center for Medical Research - ZMF Graz

AT

Andreas Tiran

Interest groups and other institutions 16

Association of Clinical Research Centers of German Universities - ACRC

DE

André Henke

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Center for Molecular Biosciences - CMBI Innsbruck

AT

Jörg Striessnig

18

Harvard Catalyst

USA

Tom Ulrich

19

National Center for Research Resources - NCRR

USA

Sylvia L. Parsons

20

Tools of Science Platform

SE

Teresa Soop

21

Toronto Region Research Alliance - TRRA

CA

Sam Lee

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2.2. Profiles of organizations and universities Barcelona Science Park (PCB) – Spain Website: http://www.pcb.ub.es/ Contact: Jesus Purroy

The Barcelona Science Park (PCB) is a non-profit foundation, home of 75 companies and four research institutes, offering work for 2,300 employees. The PCB provides a wide offer of technology services linked to biomedicine, nanobioengineering and pharmaceutical chemistry. The park has become a reference technology centre that supports not only researchers at the PCB but also other institutions and enterprises. Occupying a total of 2

5,000m , the technology facilities comprise specialized infrastructure and services. The 8 platforms not only offer services but they also actively participate in research projects, platform networks, technology development projects and agreements.

Biocenter Innsbruck – Austria Website: http://www.i-med.ac.at/biocenter/ Contact: Lukas Huber

The newly created Biocenter Innsbruck is a research centre focusing on biology, and affiliated with Medical University Innsbruck. There are roughly 200 people working in the Biocenter, divided between 10 research sections.

At present there are four highly specialised core facilities maintained and a fifth facility – for high-throughput sequencing – is in the planning stage.

Biogenouest – France Website: http://www.ouest-genopole.org/ Contact: Céline Queron

Biogenouest is a public institution that links the main national research councils and organizations with Western France's 5 universities, university hospitals and elite engineering schools. Within more than 50 constituent research units, some 2,000 personnel (including 800 researchers and lecturers) work on life science research programs. It is funded by the Brittany and Pays de la Loire Region Councils, the French Ministry of Research and the European Union. Biogenouest coordinates 15 technological core facilities in both the Brittany and Pays de la Loire regions of Western France. These core facilities group the resources and skills around the techniques of sequencing/genotyping, transcriptomics, proteomics, functional exploration and bioinformatics. The goal is to support research in genomics and post-genomics and help create new biotech companies.

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Bioindustry Park Canavese SpA – Italy Website: http://www.bioindustrypark.eu/ Contact: Fabrizio Conicella

Bioindustry Park Canavese is a science and technology park located in Canavese, near Turin in the north of Italy.

The Park promotes and develops research in biotechnologies and life sciences, hosting enterprises of the chemical, pharmaceutical, diagnostic, bioengineering and information science fields. It offers research facilities, scientific and support services, such as technology transfer, patent support, tutoring/mentoring of start-ups and spin-offs.

European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) – Germany Website: http://emblorg.embl.de/services/core_facilities/index.html Contact: Christian Boulin

EMBL, one of the world's top research institutions, is dedicated to basic research in the molecular life sciences.

EMBL is funded by public research monies from 20 member states. The Laboratory has five units: the main Laboratory in Heidelberg, and outstations in Hinxton near Cambridge (the European Bioinformatics Institute), Grenoble, Hamburg, and Monterotondo near Rome. Its 1,400 employees from 60 nations represent scientific disciplines including biology, physics, chemistry and computer science. They are grouped into 85 independent research groups. The Core Facilities at EMBL in Heidelberg were established some 10 years ago. Today, the facilities are advanced light microscopy, genomics, proteomics, protein expression and purification, electron microscopy, flow cytometry, monoclonal antibody and chemical biology.

Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), The School of Life Sciences – Switzerland Website: http://sv-platforms.epfl.ch/ Contact: Harald Hierling

EPFL is one of the two Ecoles Polytechniques Fédérales in Switzerland. Like its sister institution, ETHZ, it has three missions: education, research and technology transfer at the highest international level. Associated with several specialized research institutes, the two EPFs form the EPF domain, which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Home Affairs. EPFL brings together a campus of more than 10,000 people. EPFL coordinates 10 different core facilities.

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Genopole – France Website: http://www.genopole.fr Contact: Naceur Tounekti

Genopole was initiated in 1998 in Evry-Corbeil, south of Paris, under the impetus of the French government, Ilede-France Regional Council, Essonne County Council and the French Muscular Dystrophy Association. The goal was to create France’s first ever science and business park dedicated to genomics, genetics and biotech, and help the country to catch up with its international rivals in these fields. Genopole®’s success is largely based on the novelty of its approach: bringing together public- and private-sector research labs, university teaching facilities and life science start-ups on a single campus in Evry-Corbeil. Today, there are about 45 employees working for Genopole, who consult 20 laboratories with about 1,000 people in public research. There are no own labs under Genopole’s responsibility. On the campus there are more than 70 biotech companies with 1,200 employees.

Groupe Interdisciplinaire de Génoprotéomic Appliquée (GIGA) – Belgium Website: www.giga.ulg.ac.be Contact: Catherine Sadzot

GIGA is a unique organizational structure in Belgium which is located within the University of Liège. This "cluster" includes an academic research center of excellence, seven technological platforms, a technology transfer office, "an incubator" within business facilities for biotech companies, and a center for continued training. For all of these, genoproteomics is the main line in the scientific approach.

The floors, which are dedicated to research, have been designed similarly to the "open laboratory" pattern of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics of Dresden. This design enhances multidisciplinary within research. In GIGA there are about 500 researchers working on different topics. There are thematic research units, which are focused on different issues, such as cancer, stem cells, genetics, signal transduction, infection/immunity/inflammation, system biology and neuroscience. All researchers come from different faculties.

All the research is enabled with the help of CFs. They are part of the GIGA and are open to academic researchers as well as private companies and industry.

Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) – Portugal Website: http://uic.igc.gulbenkian.pt/ Contact: Nuno Moreno

The Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) was founded and is supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, a private Foundation, to carry out biomedical research and education. The IGC operates as a "host institution", offering facilities and services to foreign and Portuguese research groups or individual scientists. IGC is located in

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the campus of Oeiras, some 20km from Lisbon. The campus includes other basic and applied research institutions in biology, biotechnology and chemistry as well as the New University of Lisbon.

IGC’s research interests are focused on understanding the genetic bases of development and evolution of complex biological systems. The institute hosts up to 50 international research groups, involving 100 scientists, offering a multidisciplinary environment where both computational and experimental approaches are pursued. The Cell Imaging Unit currently stands as an international reference laboratory for confocal and multi-photon microscopy, as well as for high-throughput cell sorting.

Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Klinische Forschung Münster (IZKF)– Germany Website: http://campus.uni-muenster.de/izkf.html Contact: Rita Naskar

IZKF Münster is an institutional research association forming part of the Medical Faculty of Münster University. As one of nine members of the Association of Clinical Research Centers (ACRC), since 1996 IZKF receives funding from the German government as part of the Health Research 2000 program. The overarching multidisciplinary theme of its research is chronic illness. Issues currently being addressed come from areas such as cardiovascular disease, chronic inflammation and diseases of the nervous system.

KIGene – Sweden Website: Karolinska Institut and Karolinska Hospital, http://www.ki.se/kiseq/ Contact: Annika Eriksson

The former core facility KISeq, established in 1992, and the core facility for DNA sequencing and genotyping, merged in 2008 into the new core facility KIGene - genetic analysis at the Center for Molecular Medicine at the Karolinska Institut and Karolinska Hospital. The facility houses several different instruments that can be used by those who have sufficient knowledge and experience. KIGene provides start-up theoretical and technical assistance. For some applications they also offer full-service.

Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine Berlin-Buch (MDC) – Germany Website: http://www.mdc-berlin.de/de/research/core_facilities/index.html Contact: Christina Quensel

Max-Delbrück-Centrum für Molekulare Medizin (MDC) Berlin-Buch is a research institute belonging to the Helmholtz Association. There are 50 independent research groups working at MDC. Campus Berlin-Buch is a modern science, health and biotech park. Its distinguishing characteristics are its clear focus on biomedicine, the physical propinquity and close collaboration of research institutes, clinics and biotech companies. The core research is-

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sues are the molecular causes of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, interdisciplinary fundamental research into the development of new medicines, patient-oriented clinical research, and commercial implementation of biomedical discoveries. Investments in excess of 200 million euro by the German Federal Republic, Land Berlin and the EU have turned tradition-laden Campus Berlin-Buch into a centre for innovation with an attractive infrastructure and international flair.

Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) – Germany Website: http://www.mpi-cbg.de/ Contact: Ivan Baines

The MPI-CBG, founded in 1998, is one of 80 institutes of the Max Planck Society, an independent, non-profit organization in Germany. "How do cells form tissues?" has been and still is the question that researchers at MPICBG are tackling from different angles. The MPI-CBG has also invested extensively in services and facilities to allow research scientists shared access to sophisticated and expensive technologies. The Scientist voted the MPI-CBG number 1 place in the world in academia and number 1 in the world to do a postdoc in 2009.

Weizmann Institute of Science (WSI) – Israel Website: Department of Molecular Cell Biology, http://www.weizmann.ac.il/mcb/ Contact: Chaim Kahana

The Weizmann Institute of Science is one of the world’s leading multidisciplinary research centers, located in Rehovot, south of Tel Aviv. Today, around 2,500 scientists work at the Institute. Research in the Department of Molecular Cell Biology focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms and systems levels that control cell behavior: growth regulation, determination of cell fate and differentiation, cell adhesion and movement and intracellular trafficking. There are 10 different core facilities established at the Weizmann Institute.

Center for Medical Research (ZMF) – Austria Website: http://www.medunigraz.at/zmf/ Contact: Andreas Tiran

The Center for Medical Research (ZMF) is a core research institute at the heart of the university hospital campus in Styria’s capital, Graz. ZMF sees itself as a service organisation responsible for providing support of the highest possible quality for the researchers at Medical University Graz. The organisation and management of nearly 1,800 individual items of equipment requires a sophisticated facility management system. ZMF has established a quality management system for the purpose, which was certified to ISO 9001:2000 in June 2009. The ZMF model of project-related use of research resources has proved its worth, and the core facilities are developing into recognised competence centres.

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2.3. Profiles of interest groups and other institutions In addition to the interviews with the core facilities managers, other interest groups were contacted. These interviews were not based on a questionnaire, but were free-form. They were therefore also not included in the analysis.

Association of Clinical Research Centers (ACRC) – Germany Website: http://www.acrc-gu.de Contact: André Henke

ACRC was founded in 1998 as the common representative body of the clinical research centres of the German Universities. It represents the interests of the nine interdisciplinary centres for clinical research in Germany (IZKF), which came into existence as a result of a funding initiative of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in 1995, and which have demonstrated their worth as centres of excellent experimental and clinically focused research. In 2007 a tenth member was added – the Translational Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Leipzig.

Center for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck (CMBI) – Austria Website: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck, http://www.uibk.ac.at/cmbi/ Contact: Jörg Striessnig

The Center for Molecular Biosciences (CMBI) at the University of Innsbruck is an integrative and multidisciplinary research and graduate teaching institution, whose mission it is to advance knowledge on the structure, function, and interaction of biological macromolecules and of simple compounds relevant for cellular growth, metabolism, and development. Currently, the CMBI comprises 16 research groups from the Faculties of Biology, Chemistry and Pharmacy, and Mathematics, Informatics and Physics. The CMBI cooperates closely with the Biocenter Innsbruck.

Harvard Catalyst – USA Website: http://catalyst.harvard.edu/home.html Contact: Tom Ulrich

Harvard Catalyst has created a searchable database of core facilities, founded in 2008. The cores are indexed by institution and by service category; the catalogue is also searchable by keyword. The database will grow as more cores are established and additional services are identified. Core facilities are owned, supported and managed by the institutions that comprise Harvard Catalyst. While most cores are publicly available, some are required by their sponsors to limit access and to differentiate pricing. Policies regarding services, access, fees and prioritiza-

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tion vary by core and by institution. Please contact the core facility directly for more information, by using the link on each core facility page of this website.

National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) – USA Website: http://www.ncrr.nih.gov/ Contact: Sylvia L. Parsons

The National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), provides laboratory scientists and clinical researchers with the tools and training they need to understand, detect, treat and prevent a wide range of diseases. NCRR supports all aspects of clinical and translational research, connecting researchers, patients and communities across the nation. This support enables discoveries made at a molecular and cellular level to move to animal-based studies, and then to patient-oriented clinical research, ultimately leading to improved patient care. Through programs such as the Clinical and Translational Science Awards, NCRR convenes innovative research teams and equips them with essential tools and critical resources needed to tackle the nation's complex health problems. NCRR, through all of its programs, is sparking innovation and leveraging shared resources.

Tools of Science Platform – Sweden Website: www.toolsofscience.se Contact: Teresa Soop

Tools of Science is a joint research information system run by the Stockholm Science City. The platform makes research competences and core facilities at Karolinska Institut, Karolinska University Hospital, the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and Stockholm University, as well as knowledge-intensive companies delivering service to the life science industry more visible and accessible, in order to stimulate research collaboration.

Toronto Region Research Alliance (TRRA) – Canada Website: www.trra.ca Contact Person: Sam Lee

The Toronto Region has long been a recognized leader in the life sciences. It is home to one of North America's largest health sciences complexes, with more than 60 hospitals, 37 medical institutions, 8,200 physicians and 54,000 health professionals. The Toronto Region hosts North America's third largest pharmaceutical and biotechnology cluster, with more than 700 firms and 146,000 employees and the University of Toronto medical school ranks third in the world for research publication citations.

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2.3. Analysis of interviews The structured interviews with 15 core facility managers were based on a questionnaire, which was sent to the managers in advance. The questions covered the following three areas:

› › ›

Organisation of core units Core unit uses and finances Development trends.

The individual interviews lasted between 50 and 90 minutes, and were conducted in English or in German. The transcriptions of interviews are as far as possible expressed in the experts’ own words, and have been abridged and corrected only where necessary to make their meaning clear. All quoted comments come straight from the interviews.

Question 1: Do the core facilities have a thematic focus?

Seven of the experts interviewed answered that their core facilities had one or more focuses, while the other eight facilities were multiple platforms with no special thematic focus. All the core facilities in the study concentrate on the life sciences. The facilities that are part of research institutes typically have the same focus as their respective institutes.

› › › › › › › › ›

“At the beginning it was only genomics and proteomics, now it is all the equipment that can service life science research.”

“Now we are moving more from genomics to biotherapies, post-genomics and cell therapy. But we also have the technical platforms which are focused on analysis.”

“Each core facility has its own focus. Our focus is not limited to particular organs, or to cancer, we’ve called it molecular medicine. We do both fundamental research and clinical research.”

“We focus on genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics.”

“Much of these facilities are used to work on oncology, CNS, inflamation and autoimmunity. But they are multifacilities and can be used to work on other areas as well.”

“We are using mainly technology platforms that are multiple platforms.”

“Our projects are there to support fundamental research.”

“What is relevant is that the individual units can support a number of different aspects. It should back up the full spectrum of research of a university [….]. We are as broad and focused as it needs to be.”

“No, there is no focus. The core facilities provide support to the various aspects of services which the scientific departments cannot deal with or where it does not pay off.”

Question 2: What core facilities are maintained?

The core facilities available cover the whole range of the most modern technologies. The technologies and services provided are all those that require particularly large investments and/or especially long training or familiarisation times. Facilities for one or more “-omics” technologies are almost always present. At all the universities surveyed, the core facilities provided were listed on the website, and in some cases there were detailed lists of all the available equipment as well.

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The managers were responsible for between five and seventeen individual core facilities, with an average of nine each. The Karolinska Institute’s KIGene is a single core facility used for sequencing. The core facilities in the survey are not comparable, and the number of core facilities managed in each case permits only limited conclusions. This is because the different areas are described differently, and in some cases a single core facility contains equipment that at other universities is managed separately. As an example, mass spectrometry and electron microscopy may be treated as separate core facilities, or they may be bundled as “genomics”.

In general, there is a recognisable tendency to distinguish between core facilities and technology platforms.

Groups of equipment which can be used independently by scientists once they have been appropriately trained are frequently called core facilities. Reservation systems are uncomplicated, based on a calendar or logbook in which the users write their names. Units using especially complex or expensive pieces of equipment that need to be operated by specially trained staff, on the other hand, are called technology platforms. What is provided here is a complete service, requiring specialised technical skills and expertise, e.g., involving data interpretation.

Question 3: Who uses the core facilities, and how much?

All the managers reported that the core facilities were available to different types of user groups. Typically, three groups were distinguished: internal users, external academic users and industry. Only in one institution were the services not available to private enterprises, but only to other universities. This fact only became clear in the course of the interview.

The proportions of different user groups in individual core facilities varied widely, with industrial use prominent in some areas and very low in others. Industrial involvement was generally high in areas such as toxicology, animal facilities, proteomics, imaging and genotyping. For all the core facilities, the experts were asked to give the proportion of users in different categories. In all cases, internal users were the largest group, with a share of at least 50%. External universities typically make up 10–20% of the usage, depending on the number of collaborative projects and geographical proximity. The overall proportion of industrial use for all core facilities averaged around 17%. It is highest at Barcelona Science Park, with about 50%, and at Bioindustry Park Canavese. At Max Planck Institute in Dresden it is around 40%, and at Genopole about 33% of its users are companies. At half the core facilities surveyed, the business share made up less than 10%.

› › › › ›

“We have 8 different stories for each technology platform. In some cases they have heavy use of industry, this is true for the combinatorial chemistry unit or the toxicology platform, which works a lot for private companies.

For proteomics it is more start-ups and public that use it.”

“It depends on the facility. In Imaging it is 50% university, 50% companies. Imaging is heavily used by large industry.”

“Some core facilities are mainly just about 99% used by academic researchers, as imaging & flow cytometry.

Others, such as proteomics or geno-transcriptomics, are more balanced between academics and industry, they have 30% industry users, including both, big pharma & SMEs.” “Industry and start-ups are using our services only in a very limited number of cases, accounting for less than 10% of the users.”

“The users differ for each technology platform. It refers to how unique the technology is on a national level.

For example, the transgenic core facility has a number of techniques that are not yet widely available, so it is extensively used by many different researchers. We monitor the overall use by the costs.”

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› › › ›

“It is difficult to say, it depends on the area. For example, in proteomics we often run quality controls, and companies can contribute up to 20% of the use, and their share in gene expression can also be high. But we are not focused on earning money.”

Industry in the real sense, which for me is something like Böhringer, doesn’t need us, they have their own equipment. For them, core facilities are not of interest.”

“So far, we haven’t pushed cooperation with industry, they come to us on their own. But we are now considering actively going after business.”

“We are currently trying to widen company access to our core facilities.”

Almost all the experts report that inquiries from industry have increased in recent years. The overwhelming majority of managers positively welcomed the trend, or actively desired and encouraged it. In the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), opinions are divided, and some core facility managers have reservations about increased use of their facilities by industries. Reasons given included:

› › ›

›

“We aren’t trying to attract industry at all costs, but only on our terms. Companies’ terms are not always easy to meet: delivery within a specified time, compliance with special GLP guidelines, etc. This quickly pushes up administrative costs and eats up the modest profits we can expect. It’s not really worth the trouble.”

“Our aim is to use industry business to fill up spare capacity in core facilities, but we don’t want to work under time pressure.”

“Industry and biotech companies also use our resources, but that’s not what we focus on. It’s more that – if we know them and collaborate with them – we offer them the use of our equipment. But basically, they’re getting in the way of our own projects. It’s not our goal to have companies as users; we want to use our core facilities ourselves.”

“I also don’t believe that companies need our core facilities, especially not at the high level we provide here.

Our methods are so sophisticated and expensive, that they’re only of interest to pure science.”

Question 4: What kinds of services are offered?

All the interviewees stated that they offered the full range of services – from instructions on how to operate the equipment, to the performance of analysis and scientific consulting. The extent of the services varies from facility to facility, and is dependent on the price and complexity of the equipment. The services can be divided as follows:

1.

2.

3.

Access to equipment Standard analyses Consulting

Where use of equipment was permitted, all the experts considered one rule essential: no access to equipment without training. While simple access to equipment requires only low-level support, consulting activities can involve quite complex, time-consuming problems, going all the way to the development of new methods. Start-ups in particular often approach core facility managers with new, open issues, and need more support than academic partners. Joint project design may follow, and generally cooperation and confidentiality agreements covering intellectual property aspects are signed.

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› › › ›

› › ›

›

“It ranges from the complete outsourcing of R&D to analyses or studies (as in sequencing) to products (transgenic animal, xenope ovocyte, synthetic vector, etc.), or just access to the core facility, generally after training.”

“We provide basically everything from training to full service.”

“With flow cytometry there are many people who have been using such equipment for a long time and know what they are doing. They make a reservation and use the equipment for a few hours, sitting at the machines themselves, with help from the staff if necessary.”

“There is the full range of services, and it varies from core facility to core facility. With bioimaging, for example, training is the first service provided, and an introduction on how to use the equipment – this is very much standardised. Over and above that, there are machines that are serviced and maintained, and many people go and use them themselves.”

“If you are using a cell sorter, people bring their own cells and there is a technician helping you. In microscale experiments you are doing the experiment yourself, after training.”

“With other equipment, and this is actually the majority of cases, one has a project, one discusses how it is to be carried out, and the final results are delivered.”

“If a company addresses us with a specific request, we have a technology transfer company that concludes a contract with the companies. I do not want the core facility managers to do this themselves, it is too tricky, it needs legal advice. You have to be very careful with intellectual property rights and also the patent situation is difficult. We do not want to give everything to the company, we like to share.”

“With industry, in some cases this is not so easy to arrange. Either you build up a core facility to service a profitable area, but then with ISO certification, standardisation, etc., or you go for lower profiling for academia.”

How do you deal with intellectual property and publication issues?

An additional question that the interviewees were asked was how they dealt with intellectual property issues, particularly with respect to publications. Most of the experts admitted that this was a sensitive issue, which occasionally led to discussions: the principles needed to be made clear from the outset. Opinions in this area are very varied. In the case of agreements purely for services, publications were rarely an issue; only where there are collaborative arrangements extending over a longer period of time and involving the development of new methods are different solutions needed for payment for the service, and depending on whether joint publication follows, or a mention in the acknowledgements. The question of scientific publication is however not least a question of fairness, and thus independent of whether the service is paid for or not.

The experts recommend that, when working with private enterprise or external partners, a cooperation agreement should always be concluded to cover all the critical points. Sometimes, though, it was difficult to be sure in advance whether what was involved was a simple service agreement or more of a collaboration. For this reason, many core facilities managers insist on a signed agreement even when it looks as though it will be a simple, standard service. One expert, though, remarked that in his experience there were far more frequently discussions about mention in publications with internal projects than when working with external partners.

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“IP is always a critical issue with collaboration, this must be clearly stated.”

“If companies pay for the service, everything is theirs. If you come with a question and you don’t know how to do a certain experiment, if we help you design the experiment, we are part of the credit.”

“With pure service agreements, the IP rights are with the customer, who then pays 60% overheads on top.

This is often more of an issue with other universities – for us it’s easier, since we are pure core facilities and not connected with an institute.”

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“These are all fee-for-service arrangements, so the core facility has no right to the scientific credit and the IP. But it is also standard practice that, if people have been seriously involved, they are also in the paper, at the very least in the acknowledgements.”

“We try to be as clear as possible from the beginning. It is often very hard to decide when it is a service and when it is a cooperation, especially before the experiment has started. We decide this case by case.”

“Whether someone is mentioned in the publication depends of the extent of the contribution. We want to avoid the publication list being made longer by the core facility services. In these cases we ask people to sign a cooperation agreement, which is very important later for patent rights. To be mentioned in the publication, there must be a substantial contribution.”

“It’s dealt with on a case by case basis. If I do an experiment, and it is clearly something that can be worked through, then the help given by the core facility is generally mentioned in the acknowledgements. If it is more than that, and a new method is developed, then it is a collaboration, which is discussed in advance.”

“Publication is an unsatisfactory issue. I have been doing this job for 9 years. The decision whether to include people is up to the scientists here. There is no obligation, it is really up to fairness and kindness.”

“There is a lot of confusion about this […]. Whether someone pays for the service or not does not make a difference in the acknowledgement of a publication. An acknowledgment is based on principles of fairness, not money. Just see what is the reality: You have the choice, if you want to persuade some postdocs to work for you, it often goes with authorship.”

Question 5: How are your core facilities organised?

The organisational structure of core facilities and how they are linked to the universities is very varied. Some facilities are completely integrated with the research institutes, as is frequently the case with universities in Austria, Germany and France, or increasingly, they are managed independently as a department or virtual unit parallel to the research institutes.

In all the examples studied, the core facilities were legally part of a university or biopark. One interviewee explained that he was planning to spin off his core facilities, so as in future to be able to run them all as a separate enterprise.

The overwhelming majority of interviewees said that they had a decentralised organisational structure. The core facilities are managed directly by a core facility head, typically a scientist, who reports to a core facility manager.

Twelve of the experts interviewed said that they had established an advisory committee or steering committee for at least some of their core facilities. This applies in particular in the case of technology platforms that are home to very expensive equipment.

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“The core facilities have additional status. They are physically separated, which is a good thing, because it makes the uses to which they are put much more varied, and the synergies with the scientists located in the vicinity are put to good use. This interaction is enormously important.”

“In some labs there is an advisory board, a user committee, composed of the major scientists that are using the services.”

“It is an advisory board, not a supervisory board” “What is unique here, is that we do not run the platforms ourselves, but only coordinate them. The managing is done by our partners. They also have the possibility of using the platform themselves (at least up to 25%).”

“Each platform is managed by at least one person, that is a logistician, who works in close cooperation with an academic researcher. The manager typically has a PhD. It is important to know the needs of the scientists and

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be aware of new developments, so the academic researchers have to give this information to the person in charge of the platforms.”

Question 6: Are the individual core units ISO certified?

Three managers answered the question by saying that some of the core facilities on their site were ISO certified.

Many of the units were GLP compliant in the way they worked: certification was only relevant if private sector companies were using the core facilities, for example for the production of prototypes. Certification was of no importance in classical research work – the fear was expressed that certification would make the core units too commercial. The implicit message was that the most important thing was for quality to be of a high standard, with or without formal certification.

Five of the experts see a clear trend in the direction of certification, and confirm that they are increasingly receiving inquiries on the subject. In one university a special quality assurance manager responsible for the issue has been appointed, in another one a similar position is planned.

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“Some of the facilities are certified, such as transcriptomics, high-throughput protein identification and characterization, oroduction of viral vectors, xenope transgenesis and bioinformatics. Some others are on the way to ISO certification. We encourage such an initiative with the support of our quality assurance manager.”

“Not all of them, we are working on that. That’s one reason why some companies do part of the services in their own labs. ISO is only important for the production or manufacturing, e.g., of prototypes. For patents or classical research it is not so important. It is our plan that each platform will comply with the standards.”

“So far, we did not see any advantages to have that. I think we are currently not at this stage. What matters most is the quality of the services. Certifications will not change your services. I was in many boards of core facilities and I have seen a few core facilities that had certifications but the quality was not better.”

“We have the objective that all platforms at least respect the standards. Of our 15 platforms, we have two with ISO certifications, three have a national research label (as a high-quality platform), one has another label. So in general, about 50% have labels. Yes, companies do ask for this.”

“Are we really to put ourselves to the expense of having ourselves certified just to satisfy the requirements of industry?”

“It would be possible, but it is not really relevant. It would normally come from the industry to require this. We want to keep a research flavour to our core facilities. We have not had anyone ask so far. We had a little internal interest ourselves whether we should do this, but basically we feel that this would make the core facilities too commercial.”

“No, because we don’t do subcontract research.”

“We are in the process of hiring someone who will be in charge of this issue, at least for the platforms that are used by the companies. It is not yet an issue, but it will be an issue very soon. First, because some companies ask for verification and second, the possibility of getting financing increases with the certification (it is especially demanded when it is used for applied research).”

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Question 7: How many staff are employed in the core facilities, and what is their educational background?

The managers interviewed had an average of around 40 employees in their facilities. The Max Planck Institute in Dresden has the highest number of employees, with 110, followed by Barcelona Science Park with some 88, and Genopole, where roughly 80 people work in the core facilities in question. The staff consists of technical assistants, medical technical assistants, technicians and postdocs.

The principal argument frequently given for setting up core facilities is that it makes it easier to offer long-term employment to employees working on the platforms responsible for servicing the equipment, so that the requisite skills and expertise are kept available in the university. This is not however the case everywhere. Some institutes, such as EMBL, may only retain staff for a maximum of nine years, after which the position must be filled afresh.

Management sees this regulation positively, since it opens the door to new ideas and fresh enthusiasm.

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“In the platforms, 70% of all employees are women.”

“There are employees with limited contracts as well as with open contracts.”

“All persons are hired by the University but they do have a permanent position. This has not been easy to handle.”

“Some personnel should be permanent. Not all, but for some it is important. First, I think it is not easy to find people who have the right expertise and, second, sometimes it is difficult for these people if they have no long term perspective, they will organize their next job instead of developing the platform.”

Question 8: What are the responsibilities and decision-making authority of core facility managers and heads?

The following activities are typically the responsibility of the core facility manager: grants and funding, representing the facility internally in committees and externally, legal matters, support for core facility unit heads, contributing to strategic planning, and frequently, budgeting. Managers play an important role in decisions on new investments. Core facility unit heads are responsible for daily operations, the scientific overview, price calculations and sometimes for budgeting – if this is not done by the managers.

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“The heads of unit are responsible for the overall management of their facilities: user satisfaction, direct responsibility for their staff, hiring, etc.”

“We take some of the lessons learned from the industry and adopt the good aspects from the research culture and combine it with the industry service-oriented culture.”

“The billing is done in each core facility separately but there is also a financing unit that provides help.”

“The unit heads control the day-to-day work, and place the orders. They are also responsible for organising maintenance, which is one of the most difficult jobs in the university environment because the statutory regulations govern Austrian universities do not allow us to conclude maintenance contracts. […] Every service has to be paid for individually, which makes it very expensive and complicated.”

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Question 9: What is the educational level of core facility heads?

With one exception the core facility heads are all scientists. In GIGA (Belgium) each core facility is headed by a logistics expert, who is advised by scientists from the research institutes. The educational background of core facilities heads is typically a doctorate in biology, medicine, chemistry or veterinary medicine, depending on the area in which they are working.

The core facility managers all have doctorates. In addition to their scientific background, they usually also have business skills, often in the form of an MBA, or in the ideal case, experience in industry. The need for business education or training in addition to scientific or technical expertise is often specified, because the job profile is more similar to that of a manager than to that of an academic scientist. A high degree of service orientation, the ability to communicate and negotiating skills are also requirements.

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“What it missed is people with a management background. Usually people have a background in biology but they need an MBA or training in management to run a CF. I think part of the problems that you can see around, is that people are not trained in management issues.”

Are the staffs of the core facilities doing research as well?

It is sometimes not easy to find suitable staff to manage core facilities. Deciding to accept a position as core facility manager or unit head automatically means giving up any chance of a scientific career. Or at least that is the widespread opinion, since the service-oriented work in the facility precludes the publications that are such an essential requirement for a scientific career. People who do no research and do not publish anything for five years have generally missed their opportunity. Scientists therefore often see core facility positions as career dead ends.

This is a highly contentious and divisive issue, and the core facilities community is split into two camps. The problem is, how can one attract good and highly qualified scientists to lead core facilities without offering them research projects? For some universities the answer is clear: they enable core facility leadership to pursue its research interests in parallel. There is no other way to stay up-to-date, attract good people and make sure capacity is utilised. Other universities practise a strict separation of research and services – there seem to be as many arguments for as against.

With the experts surveyed, in eight cases research and services were strictly separated, in seven cases a combination of the two was favoured. With the seven instances favouring a mix, two of the experts admitted that they had problems with the approach, and that some research projects were only open to core facility managers with express authorisation. One head of a unit remarked that in her core facility strict time records had to be kept, and that service activities had priority.

Where separation of research and services is the preferred solution, exceptions are always being made. The exceptions can be summarised as follows:

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Research projects can always be carried out if the project is concerned with the further development of the core facility technology.

Research projects are accepted if the core facility head is working as part of a larger research team, although not as leader of the project.

Research projects are possible for core facilities that are still in process of being built up, where research is making a significant contribution to the development of the facility.

Where research projects are carried out, they must be entirely funded by grants and may not be crosssubsidised by the services.

Since this is a very controversial topic, the various opinions are given in detail below:

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“CF managers who decide to take this road destroy their own scientific careers. They become increasingly attractive to industry, it’s true, and we have to watch out that they’re not headhunted away from us. But for the managers themselves it means a hole in their publications list. They have to live with the fact that they’ll never make professors.”

“Core facility managers can make their own research projects, it has to be approved by the CEO. We have no division between research and service. I know that some other core facilities do so, but as far as I see, it is an advantage to do research, if there is enough time to do so.”

“A good CF should continue to do research, otherwise it won’t stay at top level. For us it is important that the core facilities are located within the research units.”

“If the facilities want to be on top, they have to apply for research as well. But that is not easy if someone heads the facility. There is a conflict of interest.”

“Our core facilities will never only offer services (100%). If they would, we rather suggest that they become a private company, because after all, it is public money funding. If they only provide services, they should become a spin-off.”

“Our scientists not only have the possibility of doing research, they have the responsibility to do it. Mainly methodological research, it is understood […], to prevent conflicts of interest.”

“The ideal situation is that people heading the facility are not allowed to do research, only to help others. But this is very risky for CF managers, because they might get stuck in their scientific career. That is why the people in the facility should have a permanent position, otherwise they will not pursue in their careers!”

“All PhDs do research. There are good opportunities, but it is a problem. If you want to pursue a career, it is difficult. Because service does not lead to publications. Some managers publish a lot, others don’t, it is the nature of each job. Ideally it is 50% service and 50% research.”

“This is a complicated issue. We decided our managers are not involved in research, so there is no research in the core facilities and the managers have no projects of their own. Some CF managers do have a small team parallel to the CF but it is not mixed, it is another unit of the lab. I think this is one key issue of the success of our core facilities.”

“If the CF is to function well, one has to ensure that people do not have their own projects, and that if they do research, then only as part of a group. Otherwise there are conflicts of interest. This is not the case with sequencing, where people have their own research on the side, because this discipline has first to be developed.

With the established groups, the activities are separated from the research.”

“We have this problem every day […]. In reality, we have to solve it, because researchers do not want to do service. For collaboration platforms it works well, but if the platforms are purely service-platforms, they generally do not have researchers. They use the expertise of scientists for the questions, but we have technicians who run the facilities […]. When the equipment is inside a lab, they always want to do more research than service.”

“They do not have their own research topics. But for the equipment you sometimes have to do research, e.g., for proteomics, when you have to try different kind of approaches, but is not research for the managers themselves.”

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“Each Facility has to be equally accessible to ALL, that is a basic rule here, so it cannot be affiliated with any research group (otherwise you have all those issues of priority access and all the troubles that come with it) .

The tradition in Europe however is different. Now this is changing.”

“The parallel research model does not work: but there are certain technologies where it is OK to do so. Image processing or bioinformatics, for example. At our institute we have research groups that are part of the service but the research they do is only focused on developing tools for the service unit or equipment. The research group gets grants, etc. In image processing, for example, they also do parallel teaching up to 50%. There are core facilities where you are obliged to have a research model, but for others we keep it down at 20%, where there has to be technology development to keep the service state-of-the-art.”

“It is an issue how to keep your finger on the pulse and how to hire a top person if you don’t offer research.

But you have to be aware of the fact that if research is done in the same institute, it is only overhead cost for the service! That’s the main argument. Users end up paying for the research of the scientists and that should not happen. Plus, the scientists will have a conflict within the service: where to spend time – help people or do research?”

Question 10: When were the core facilities established?

The majority of the core facilities were set up after the year 2000. The oldest core facilities – according to their manager – are at the Weizmann Institute and were set up in the Eighties. Developments in Austria are significantly far behind: most of the core facilities are still very young. In Switzerland increasing numbers of core facilities were established at EPFL about two years ago.

Summary: Germany As part of the IZKF initiative in Germany, since 1996 a great deal of work has been done to make laboratory facilities and equipment independent of existing research institutes and to create a modern, interdisciplinary standalone research infrastructure – the core facilities. The individual centres for clinical research (IZKFs) received public funding for a period of about 10 years. A total of eight university IZKFs were grant-supported. By the time the funding was exhausted, around four years ago, many IZKFs had established themselves very successfully in the marketplace. In the course of the review it was established that the universities that had IZKFs were producing significantly better research results than those that did not. The number of publications was also considerably higher.

Question 11: How are the core facilities financed?

When establishing core facilities, financial considerations always play a major role. More efficient use of existing facilities through higher capacity utilisation and avoidance of duplication of equipment in the same locality are always mentioned in this context. The real challenge, however, lies in the management of day-to-day operations, and particularly in ensuring adequate financing.

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“The problem is not to build a core facility, but to run it. You need a self-sustaining business model, if you want to be good at it.”

“Most problems can be solved with money.”

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Most of the experts interviewed were less than forthcoming about the financing of core facilities. Five of them said that they were working in a non-profit environment; six organizations were allowed to make profits, which were then reinvested. At least five of the managers had a fixed annual budget at their disposal, while the rest had to apply for financing from year to year.

Sources of finance include charges for services, university budgets, research projects, and grants and other public funding. Few of the managers gave figures for their annual budget, and the numbers available cover such a wide range that it is reasonable to suspect that the costs the budgets are required to cover are very different in each case. The figures are hence not comparable. In some core facilities charges to users are at least enough to cover the running costs. To finance new equipment, grant funding is sought. Decisions for the acquisition of new equipment must be supported and authorised by the relevant committees. Some equipment is financed with sponsored funding.

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“The CFs can make profit provided they do not generate unfair competition with existing companies.”

“We do not have any kind of annual budget, unfortunately. This is one of the most difficult parts of the job. It is a great advantage to have an annual budget!”

“We are in the process of planning to introduce an internal charging system, and at the same time to get a better understanding of the costs.”

“Ideally the payment should cover the routine running of the unit.”

“We cover our operating costs, but are not even close to covering our investment costs.”

“We are entirely user-financed. Only when we have to buy new expensive equipment, we have to get funding for that. But the rest is financed by our service.”

“When it comes to financing large equipment, the other units, who will later on use the equipment put some money into the basket for financing. There is no real advantage, unless they pay more that 70% (then they have a priority usage).”

Technology partnerships To finance new equipment, technology partnerships are also mentioned as one possible option: the idea is to collaborate with industry, which will put newly developed equipment – often prototypes – at the core facilities’ disposal. The facilities then give feedback on the equipment and make their expertise and appropriate samples available. In exchange they can test and use the latest equipment. Maintenance is paid for by the manufacturer.

This approach was mentioned by the Max Planck Institute and EMBL.

The core facility manager of Barcelona Science Park (BCP) had a similar example. In this case, businesses on the Campus were allowed to set up their instruments in the shared facilities space. BCP paid for the maintenance, and in exchange the equipment was available for other occupants of the Campus to use. The practice had proved its worth, although the equipment needed to be carefully selected, since service and maintenance could be very expensive. And the instruments had to be ones that were needed by a sufficient number of users.

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“The industry can give equipment to us (while they still own it) and they are allowed to use it up to 15% of the time. We give them feedback on their equipment and in exchange they get our new samples. There is consulting and exchange of information.”

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“We also establish technology partnerships with companies, which are very attractive to technology providers.

It is a way of collaboration with industry. Typically, they put new instruments or prototypes in our labs, and we use and improve them. Typically, the companies provide maintenance. We provide technical support and take seriously the quality control and confidentiality. We receive a lot of those instruments. The company pays half of the running costs for the facility. For researchers it is great, because they get access to something nobody else has yet.”

Question 12: Which user fee model is used?

Fourteen managers reported that there were different tariffs for different categories of users. Only in one case was there a standard tariff for all. Typically, there were three categories, and in some cases there was a fourth category for start-ups:

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Internal users

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External academic users

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Industry

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(Start-ups or SMEs)

The following general tendencies were observed: internal users generally paid only for consumable supplies.

Other universities were typically also charged for depreciation, and – to the extent that it was not a question of collaborative projects – for part of the personnel costs. Prices to industry generally included consumables, depreciation, personnel costs, maintenance, overheads and a profit margin. Start-ups were in some cases entitled to a reduction on industry prices. Other charging schemes are of course also possible. One organisation emphasised that all its prices were based on full costs. From time to time, special price reductions are available where the aim is to give greater publicity to technologies under development or to improve capacity utilisation.

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“Our prices are a compromise. But we want postdocs to be able to afford to use the core facilities. “ “When we calculate a price, we use the same approach that is used in a company, we include all the costs (personnel, depreciation, consumerables etc.).”

“For industry the costing is relatively strict and there is little room for negotiation. Industry’s interest in using the equipment is greater than ours is in having them use it.”

“We try to offer services at market prices, but sometimes we have to work at cost or even below costs. But that only happens in 1-2 platforms. At the end of the year, all platforms are more or less even.”

“The EU is not happy about this practice, it is not approved. So we are aware of that, there will be some change in the future. It would be a pity for us to lose a customer because of money, so we always try to find a way.”

“For other universities full costs are charged, including depreciation. This is clearly spelled out in the Austrian Universities Act, there is no way round it.”

Pricing is a sensitive issue: on the one hand it is important to offer scientists and postdocs a service they can afford, and on the other, there should be no unfair competition with organizations in the private sector that provide the same service commercially. For this reason, most universities concentrate on providing only the services that are not – or not yet – available in the private sector. As soon as a given technology is sufficiently mature to be commercially viable, the universities will generally leave the field to industry. For example, the universities are

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more and more withdrawing from classical sequencing, because this service is increasingly available from the private sector.

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“If a private company is offering the same service, then the intention will be to close our unit. This is the general decision. We are not competing with commercial companies. If the service is good and available elsewhere, we do not offer it anymore.”

“We had lots of discussions with industry on how to set fair prices. On one hand the industry doesn’t want us to undermine the business of service providers and on the other hand they want cheap service for start-ups.

So, what is the solution? The way we do it, is that in our core facilities we focus on what is not available from the industry. But it is difficult where to draw the line. How to make sure where to position offerings and support so it does not produce any conflict. But this is the main criteria: is a certain service available from industry? If yes, than we would not offer this service. Our facilities are to start where the commercial providers stop.”

“What we have recently introduced is the outsourcing of some services to external companies. For example, we used to do a lot of sequencing, not the new generation sequencing, but the old one. We found two external companies that are doing all this sequencing now for us for a better price and it is a good service. This allowed us to get the personnel free for new technologies. This is something that is extremely important: to evaluate regularly, the quality and the volume of service, if it is still adequate.”

Question 13: Are you happy with the capacity utilisation of the core facilities?

Core facility managers reported that capacity utilisation varied widely depending on the core facility. The overall majority claimed to be happy with the capacity utilisation of their facilities, which averaged 73% for the organizations surveyed. Five managers even reported that they were operating at full capacity, which is all the more remarkable in that – with one exception – they reported no conflicting interests in use of the equipment. Only one manager reported 100% capacity utilisation of his core facilities, with recurring conflicts and arguments about project priorities. This suggests that some managers may be over-estimating the level of capacity utilisation.

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“The occupancy rate of the core facilities is 100% because human resources are fully occupied. As regards to equipment only, the occupancy rate is 40–80%, depending on the facility.”

“In general around 70%, but it is depending on the period.”

“We reach sometimes saturation, for some we have waiting times at peak periods. In general, it is more than 80%.”

“It’s usually around 80%, and quite frequently there are bottlenecks.”

“In general, the occupancy rate is between 50% and 70% including the use of the management organization.

My feeling is that we have to improve this. We do not use all the capacities. That is why it is so important to communicate and offer a good price.”

“On average it is about 80% capacity which is close to a 100% of costs. Most of the facilities here cover the running costs.”

“Mostly we’re busy around the clock; we only take on external users in the spirit of making science available to everybody.” “But we don’t push it, that’s not what we want.”

“The most important element why we are cost effective, is the use of unused capacity. The instruments are minimally staffed, but they have a high capacity. So if you use it extensively, you will be able to balance your financials. And you will get income from user fees. So we share very efficiently unused capacity! That’s why we can afford so many service units. Out of the budget we receive, we would only be able to offer 6-8 platforms.”

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Pricing and capacity utilisation Particularly with large equipment and modern high-throughput machines, capacity utilisation is a major factor, even though its importance is frequently underestimated. This results in enormous costs, because the machines are under-utilised. Prices are generally calculated on the basis of 100% utilisation, which in practice is never achieved. The following example highlights the problem:

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“Take next generation sequencing: a single run costs 10,000–15,000 euro. The capacity of this machine is enormous. These instruments are bought by individual labs and they want to offer the service. The department has purchased the equipment, because the scientists have told them that they will make a lot of money offering this service. They calculate the price of the service according to 100% capacity of the instruments. But in reality the capacity is only 15%. Why? Well, even if they get all the samples from their university, they will not be able to fill the machine, because the capacity is too big. So that increases the costs for each experiment by 5 times. In reality, the costs are five times as much because the equipment is only used by 15%. So one single experiment costs a fortune. But for the machine it does not make any difference if you put 1 or 100 samples in it. There is a huge misunderstanding with those machines. What happens is that the lab can no longer afford to run the service. This has created a disaster for those instruments. Now they are switched off in many institutes but still they cost 500 euro a day, even switched off. Now slowly, there is a shift in awareness. And they start to share the usage of those machines.”

Question 14: What are the rules and policies governing use?

Almost all the universities reserve priority access for internal users. Only two organizations said they offered equal access to all. “First come, first served” is the commonest approach to prioritisation. Another very common rule is that there is no access to the machines without training. In the event of user conflicts, the decision is usual up to the head of the core facility. Only in one instance would conflicts be referred to the advisory board.

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“In general it is first-in-first-out, that’s the golden rule.”

“The most basic rule is: if you use equipment yourself, you have to have a specific training. Everything is registered in a book and so we have good controlling terms of who is using what and when.”

“The principle of ‘first come, first served’ means that outsiders don’t get pushed to the back. It’s all controlled by a computerised reservations system.” „We have problems with this all the time. In this environment with public and private players, it is guaranteed that you have troubles […]. Rules are not possible, if you do this in writing, it would not work. You need the room to negotiate.”

Question 15: How do you reserve time on the machines?

For the simple equipment, the machines are generally reserved via the university’s intranet. For more costly collaborative projects, reservation is preceded by an oral discussion. Only a few organizations have a fully computerised system.

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“It is fully electronic now. We have whole databases of billing, user profiles, etc. The user profiles are automatically provided, whenever someone books equipment online, we get all the data. If an offer is

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submitted online, it is automatically recharged to the user. That is extremely helpful in updating our service to what is needed.�

Question 16: What in your view are the key success factors for a core facility?

There was a wide variety of answers as to what the success factors were. Some points were mentioned more frequently than others, and form clusters in the table below. The importance of well-trained staff, a core facility meeting a real need, and a high degree of service orientation were the ones mentioned most often. There were an equal number of mentions for separation of research and service and integration of the two activities, which shows clearly how the issue polarises opinions.

Table 2: Key success factors for a core facility Factors mentioned by interviewees

Frequency

Human resources, good management

8

To answer a need

7

Service orientation

6

USP, uniqueness of service offering

5

Funding

3

Visibility of the core facility

3

Separation of research and service

3

Integration of research and service

3

User-friendly prices

3

Continuing education and training

2

External reviews

1

Interdisciplinarity

1

Quality management

1

Data preparation for businesses

1

Size of the core facility

1

Independence

1

Computerised infrastructure

1

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Some sample quotations from core facility managers:

› › › › › › ›

“We need scientists who act as consultants. Small Biotech companies often need a lot of help. Usually they come with a problem and then they need an answer (or trust that you will find an answer for them). So this is crucial for the platform to find answers.”

“One of our assets is that our core facilities are composed of four different technology platforms, so you can follow a project through different stages. You can pass a sample from one department to another. It starts with an analysis and ends with the computer-data-output.”

“This requires a certain quality level, delivered within a certain time. Companies require higher and more precise data, it is more complex, because the data has to follow what the company wants.”

“The prime mission must be service.”

“Each facility should have a development team, a research group inside the facility doing the technical development working specifically on improving the CF. If you want to be on the edge, you need constant development. Otherwise you will only be copying others.“ “Often even colleagues in neighbouring rooms don’t know what equipment is actually available. We provide information in seminars, a flyer, a newsletter.”

“External reviews are very important! It starts in many places now, but there are still many core facilities without external reviews.”

Question 17: Can you identify best practice examples of core facilities?

The Max Planck Institute in Germany, Barcelona (Deep Blue and BCP) and Genopole in France were each mentioned twice in this connection. There were also several favourable references to the situation in the USA, where there is a much longer tradition of core facilities, and the management is in some cases highly professional. Three of the core facilities were included in the survey on the suggestion of other interviewees. It remains an open question as to whether best practice examples exist:

›

“There is no best practice model. What is most important, and this is tough to say, but usually the success is 80% linked to the quality of the person who is in charge of the facility and 20% to the supervisor.”

Question 18: How do you see core facilities developing in the years to come?

The answers to this last question were varied and stimulating. All the experts were of the opinion that core facilities would increase in number in the future. This trend would primarily be driven by costs, but there are other reasons, such as changes in research work in the direction of smaller teams with more interdisciplinarity and collaboration, which favours the spread of core facilities. Another point emphasised was that core facilities represent a very dynamic and rapidly changing scene. Core facilities, as we know them today, will not be the same in five years. This requires great flexibility, also on the part of staff, who need to be retrained for new equipment.

The establishment of core facilities by private businesses and industry will also increase. This tendency is also cost-driven, both because equipment is continually becoming more expensive and funding is limited, and because of the growing pressure on universities to reduce costs and to find alternative sources of finance. Shared core facilities will also have a major role to play in regional policy, to increase the attractiveness of a given region.

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The establishment of core facilities by private businesses and industry will also increase. This tendency is also cost-driven, both because equipment is continually becoming more expensive and funding is limited, and because of the growing pressure on universities to reduce costs and to find alternative sources of finance. Shared core facilities will also have a major role to play in regional policy, to increase the attractiveness of a given region.

›

› › › › › ›

› › › › › ›

“We see that some technologies are emerging and others are disappearing and becoming less trendy […].

Sequencing is a very fast changing and growing segment. Transcriptomics is getting less important. As managers of technology platforms, we cannot jump to all that comes in new, but we have to accept, that the platforms we have now are not the ones that we will have in 5 years. As a result, people who are now working for, e.g., transcriptomics will have to adapt and maybe work for another area in the future.”

"Future trends will be more in the direction of microscopy, because the equipment is so expensive. It makes no sense to buy many instruments, it is better to buy the best equipment and make it available centrally. Deep sequencing is a new trend, but as we’ve said, everything changes very fast.”

“High-throughput sequencing will be clearly a development. I am not sure for how long. This is going to expand to medical practice. Within two years you will get a full human genome for maybe USD 5,000. I am sure that the demand will be booming.”

“The big machines can only be located somewhere centrally […]. They are enormously expensive, as is acquiring the knowhow needed to interpret the data at all.”

“There is an increasing demand on higher throughput and efficiency, so you will need bioinformatics, if you get a lot of data. And this trend will increase.”

“I see more and more that the facilities will be specialised and the different territories and regions will work together. The costs are increasing and therefore not everybody can afford the special equipment, institutions will increasingly share equipment.”

“Research is changing: research will be organized differently in the future in most universities. We will see a change of the old 60-80 people research groups to smaller groups of 10 people. This is a clear trend. This is now accomplished in all important research institutions, not yet in universities, they usually lag behind some 5–10 years.”

“We need to have smaller and flexible teams, simpler to establish, with much more interaction within the research group. This helps a lot to improve quality and service – the trend is definitely like that. I believe that this shift will happen to universities in the next 5 years.”

“Also, people will realise that we expect more from scientists now and in the future than in the past. In Europe we still have a lot to do in the technology transfer. We recruit a lot of people from the US, they are much more experienced when it comes to core facilities. In the US, core facilities are standard.”

“There is noticeably increasing pressure to make core facilities also operate economically.”

“It will be impossible for the academic research to keep working without the platforms, there is the trend to put all the equipment together and put one person in charge.”

“This is also true for different countries: platforms will be put together and interaction will be increased. For example, we are part of two INTERREG programs (Alma GRID and FACILIS) which focus on technology platforms. These two programs have money for SMEs to give them access to these platforms.”

“For a city or region: investing in infrastructure is the right thing to do. If they build a good infrastructure, good scientists will come. If the city or region puts money in establishing a good infrastructure, they will not have to finance the research projects! So it is a new way of financing research. By providing the infrastructure the scientists will easily get EU grants etc. themselves.”

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03. European initiatives for laboratory infrastructures This section provides some examples of current initiatives in Europe to provide core facilities or laboratory infrastructures. The information is taken from relevant websites.

Alma in Silico – INTERREG Project http://www.alma-in-silico.com/

The Alma-GRID project was established between four biological departments of the Euregio universities. It is partly funded by the European Union and the Euregio which is an international organization of neighboring German, Dutch and Belgian regions. First aim is to provide a virtual lab organization (Alma-GRID) in order to share expensive and limited resources between the four universities as well as to offer these resources to industry. Using this university grid the international cooperation between the universities should be strengthened to create a center of excellence for biosciences in the Euregio. Second aim of this project is to establish and provide HPC (high performance computing) for biosciences in the Euregio. HPC is more and more vital in biosciences and none of the universities alone could provide the infrastructure needed to generate the desired computational power. HPC will be used in this project to aid the bioinformatics services at all four sites and to provide enabling technologies for leading edge research such as high throughput approaches, compound screening and protein modeling.

The project is coordinated by the GIGA-Research Center of the University of Liège. Further partners include the Universities of Hasselt (BIOMED), UMC+ Maastricht (GCM) and RWTH Aachen (IMB). The aim of this 3 yearproject is to build an integration, dissemination and knowledge management platform in the field of “systems biology”. This project will link industries, research programs and academic education. An amount of 7,660,000 Euros is allocated by the Interreg IV European Funds and the committed Regions. The project consists of three main actions including the development of a Euregional bioinformatics platform, the establishment of a technology platform for systems biology and validation projects (inducing efficient collaborations in research against cancer, multiple sclerosis, pharmacological and toxicological studies, etc.) which will use the 2 previous platforms. An additional action will concern the knowledge sharing in order to establish a training program in bioinformatics for researchers and life sciences technicians, and also in new methodological, technological and informatics tools.

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BioCT – European project http://cebr.net/Groups/Default.aspx

This project was mentioned by Teresa Soop, Tools of Science Platform. CEBR members can download more detailed information from the website. The principal aim is to transpose the Swedish initiative into Europe and create a European, web-based platform for core facilities. The next BioCT meeting is in Piedmont, Italy, on 19 February 2010. The following meeting is in Stockholm in April 2010.

ERA-INSTRUMENTS Infrastructure funding in the life sciences http://cordis.europa.eu/icadc/fetch?CALLER=FP7_PROJ_EN&ACTION=D&DOC=32&CAT=PROJ&QUERY=011a a1a03296:8efc:5c9973a8&RCN=86706

Coordinator: Deutsche Forschunggemeinschaft (DFG) Contact: Johannes Janssen Tel: +49 2288852430 Partner in Austria: Bundesministerium fĂźr Wissenschaft und Forschung (BMWF)

Start: 1 April 2008, end: 31 March 2011

It has become increasingly obvious that concepts and strategies for research infrastructure (RI) funding should be harmonized and coordinated within the EU. ESFRI has determined requirements for European RI funding and has presented a roadmap. Growing attention is paid to life sciences that rely on RIs of a less centralized, but more networked dimension. There is a clear need for action in the interdisciplinary area between physics, chemistry, biology and medical sciences as cutting edge instrumentation becomes increasingly expensive and, yet, indispensable for world-class research.

However, promotion of research policies, apart from the ESFRI projects, has been restricted so far to national efforts without managing these actions with a European view. Funding and research organizations can not afford to remain at the national stage with world-wide competition for the best scientists and the most promising projects.

Frontier research is international since long and funding organizations have to follow scientists to the European level. ERA-Instruments aims at initiating coordination and a sustainable network of ministries, charities, funding agencies and research councils active in funding of life science RI.

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FASILIS – Facility Sharing in Life Sciences Promoting innovation in North West Europe life science SMEs by enabling easy transnational access to research facilities http://www.nweurope.eu/index.php?act=project_detail&id=3873

INTERREG IVB Contact: Dick de Jager (e-mail: dgjagger@bom.nl) Tel: +31 652 63 33 05

FASILIS will open up public and private research infrastructures in the field of human health (biotech, pharmaceutical and medical technology) to SMEs from other regions in North West Europe. The aim is to give SMEs access to a far wider range of research facilities than is currently available at a regional level, broadening the competence networks of both SMEs and research infrastructures and so contributing strongly to increasing regional innovation capacity in the field of human health.

SHARE project http://www.healthgrid.org

SHARE project ended up in 2008 concluding 27 months of a EC funded project under the FP6 framework. The SHARE project was originally built on the conclusions of the HealthGrid "White Paper", which suggested the development and deployment of health grids technology within 10-15 years. Part of the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Grids are computing networks which shall benefit a large number of application in healthcare in the coming future by sharing and analyzing data in medical research area.

This project involved the participation of universities and laboratories from several European countries (Spain, Belgium, UK, Germany and France) as well as three other participants from America (Chicago) and Asia-Pacific (Taiwan). All these partners gathered all their knowledge and their know-how in order to reach just one goal: develop the Grid's initiative for a better healthcare of mankind.

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04. Further reading R. HALEY (2009): “A Framework for Managing Core Facilities within the Research Enterprise”, Journal of Biomolecular Techniques 20:226–230 © 2009 ABRF.

P. De PAOLI (2009): “Institutional shared resources and translational cancer research”, J Transl Med. 2009 Jun 29;7:54.

G. FARBER, L. RAMM, S. PARSONS (2009): “The Efficient Management and Utilization of Core Facilities”, Final Workshop Report, July 14-15, The Office of Extramural Research, Office of the Director, NIH and NCRR.

M. CILIA (2008): “Toward Sustaining Women in Careers in Core Laboratories - A Workshop Review Including Recommendations from the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities”, Journal of Biomolecular Techniques, December; 19(5): 353–355.

J. ZIMMERMANN, J. SELIG (2008) : „Laborautomation und IT-Infrastruktur für Core Facilities“, BIOspektrum, 3. August, 14. Jahrgang

Ernst & Young (2008): „Beyond Borders: Global Biotechnology Report 2008”

D.K.R. ROBINSON, A. RIP, V. MANGEMATIN (2007): “Technological agglomeration and the emergence of clusters and networks in nanotechnology”, Research Policy (2007), doi:10.1016/j.respol.2007.02.003.

Available online at: www.sciencedirect.com.

C.M. REY (2007): “Creating Campus Core Research Facilities: Trying to Stay Ahead of Technological Curve”, Friday, October 26, 2007, available from http://today.ucsf.edu/stories/creating-campus-core-researchfacilities-trying-to-stay-ahead-of-technologi/

A. PEERBAYE, V. MANGEMATIN (2006): „Sharing Research Facilities: Towards a new Mode of Technology Transfer?”, Biotechnology & Telecommunications Innovation: Conditions for Emerging Technologies, Volume: 7, Issue: 1, Cover date: February 2005 Page(s): 23-38.

J. W. FOX (2006): “Laboratories in the Age of Systems Biology”, From Technology and Operations, Published: 5/31/2006, The LabManager.

J. TROGADIS (2006): “Issues in the Management of a Core Imaging Facility”, From Business and Finance, Published: 11/30/2006, The LabManager.

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C. SLAUGHTER (2005): “ A Bright but Demanding Future for Core Facilities”, Journal of Biomolecular Techniques, June; 16(2): 167–169.

V. MANGEMATIN, A. PEERBAYE (2003): “Life Sciences Large Scale Research Facilities: what are the effects on technology transfer?”, EGOS Conference: Copenhagen

R.H. ANGELETTI et al. (1999): “Research Technologies: Fulfilling the Promise”, The FASEB Journal, Vol. 13.

K.M. IVANETICH et al. (1993): “Biotechnology core facilities: Trends and Update”, Biomolecular Resource Center, News and Features, Vol. 7, Sept. 1993.

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