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Has anyone's institution hosted a core lab showcase or other open event to raise core lab visibility, particularly since Covid? I am new to a position with some responsibility to increase awareness of cores on campus and was thinking to organize a big event, but then wondered what would motivate people to come? Is it worth trying to do something in person now that the world is used to virtual connection? Would a series of more focused events in various parts of campus be more effective? What kinds of events have you participated in and how effective were they?  Thanks!

Hi Deborah.

Yes, we have conducted workshops prior to the annual conference hosted by the organisation.  There are several core facilities here and we jointly made 45 minute presentations each in the morning and in the afternoon we held short practical workshops with attendees going in rotation into each lab.  I think it went well and generated a lot of interest especially among the young scientists.

We've tried various things. We have a quarterly series where a core presents and two investigators give talks about their research that was enabled by use of the core. That has probably been the best marketing. In the past, we had vendor fairs on campus so rather than trying to hold a core-only event we would just leverage that event and setup a few tables to highlight some of our cores.  We've also had core directors do presentations at post-doc meetings to reach that user group more directly. That seemed to work well. There is also a core newsletter that we send out periodically when we want to highlight a new service or recent equipment upgrade/addition. I think you have to try lots of angles if you want to reach the widest audience.

My group hosted a first ever open house in March of 2022, just as we were allowed to gather in groups unmasked in my state. Each core/group had a poster and table and we opened the event up to our entire center.  We had individual snack bags and a raffle. We had over 400 attendees to our event and are currently planning our second open house.

Good morning.  Johns Hopkins used to have a CORE showcase before COVID.  We did it every year for maybe 5 years.  Food was offered so that was an incentive to get people to come however in my case, I don't think we got any new users from the event.  Maybe other CORES at the event were successful in getting new users though.  Jodie

Hi Deborah, 

Our university regularly hosts a Core research day. It features multiple cores on campus, set up poster style, where people can come by, ask questions, and receive additional information or brochures. etc. Our researchers flock to this event. Not only does it increase invisibility, it usually allows cores to follow up with those who have shown interest. We did this event virtually one time, and it was not very well attended. It featured cores in a series of breakout rooms that people could select and come and talk to core members or core directors. Ultimately it was a little awkward. We also have a website that describes several of our institutional cores, kind of a landing pad that can lead to the core's homepage if desired.  I find these events to be fairly effective, with our imaging core receiving at least two additional new researchers after about a 3 hour time frame of exposure.

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Sharon Samuel

Lab Manager - Small Animal Imaging Facility
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham AL
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We did a core showcase last year for this exact reason! We did ours during our University research week and offered it up to all core facilities on campus. We had about 35% that expressed interest which was great!

A couple of things to think about!

1. Give yourself at least 6 months to plan, we also reached out to vendors to have them supplement some of the costs.
2. You will definitely need a lot of hands to help the day of the event.
3. We offered lunch to the attendees, but we required them to get a sign off from at least 5 core facilities.
4. We had a ted talk style presentation lineup during the showcase. This was not well attended for us and we probably won't do this again. 
5. Make sure the location you pick is centrally located as much as possible to drive traffic!

Happy to chat more about this if you or anyone else is interested.

My email is kraftmeg@med.unc.edu

We host a reception for new faculty each year, with food and drinks, and the cores presenting posters. That is usually very well attended and nearly always generates new users. Faculty are individually invited, and we have learned that specifically mentioning that food and wine will be available is critical to driving attendance. Letting the researchers talk individually with the core staff and discuss their research and potential projects is also key. We also hold graduate research symposia where students present work they have done with the core facilities. Those are excellent both for letting the students practice presentation skills, and for providing concrete examples of what can be done in collaboration with the cores. On a smaller level, we have hosted workshops highlighting specific instruments or techniques, and sometimes the core directors have asked for time in department faculty meetings to do a short presentation on their core. In person is far more effective than virtual for this. We tried to do the new faculty meet and greet virtually during Covid, and it was a disaster.

Hi Deborah,

We used to host these events frequently at UCSF. We would get pretty good attendance and traffic to these events, pre-COVID. I don't know if they tried any since the pandemic yet. I can put you in touch with the team who organized them, as I'm not at UCSF anymore.

Jenn

Hi Deborah, 

Every year Harvard Medical School hosts a "research cores showcase" for all cores in the area. Being where we are, this usually means there are 50+ cores present at the showcase. It is a 2hr poster session (usually 3pm-5pm, so not a morning or all day thing), there are appetizers and each attendee gets a drink ticket - which is usually a surefire way to draw some people in for snacks & knowledge. It is relatively informal, usually the core staff will end up chatting to each other while researchers "browse" and we let them know we are available for any questions, and/or if we sense someone has a question we'll offer to go over services. We give out brochures to take for later review, which people love because there can be a lot of information. We tend to get a slight bump in inquiries from it.

Generally people who have questions have a specific project they are looking for help on, and whichever core answers them with helpful info is the one they follow up to (rather than collecting info for a "someday" project). So it might be helpful to do it a few times a year if you have less cores to coordinate. 

I hope this helps! 

Ashley