All Members Community

The ABRF Core Admin Network (CAN) is soliciting your help articulating the value and impact of core facilities on the research environment. Given the current, and rapidly changing, climate we would like to pull together a unified statement that individuals can use in conversations with leaders, and all involved with ensuring the continuity of research and investment in core facilities. 
 
We would be grateful if you could share any tools you have that show the value of cores to the research community as well as communication practices you have used to inform the world on the importance of funding core facilities to advance research. We would like to hear your messages, also welcome thoughts and ideas you may have to help us communicate fully and effectively, and establish a unifying voice of advocacy. 
 
Please send in your materials by Friday, March 7 by responding to this thread. The CAN will consolidate all submitted materials and publish a few recommendations by mid-March. 
 
And as a reminder: whether you are a full time administrator, someone who dabbles, or just administration curious, the Core Administration Community is an active source of information and experts available to engage. Find and sign up for Core Administration Community here: Core Admin Community Home. 

Thank you!

Andrew,

Thanks for spearheading this.  I don't have any materials to contribute, but I definitely think this is a moment that cores could use to shine.  I think we offer the institution ways to conserve F&A in perhaps ways they don't think about.  For example, by consolidating instruments into key locations (like a shared instrument core or maker space), institutions can reduce the number of instruments sitting on benches (plugged in and drawing electricity, perhaps under service contract) but rarely in active use.  This can help with space issues as well.  Data cores can help with data integrity and can promote efficient storage of data--something I think NIH really needs to take a look at helping with, especially if they want to cut F&A.  Can they provide cloud based storage solutions so Universities aren't spending F&A building out data storage capacity?  BioBanks provide efficient, secure, storage of samples, which can reduce electricity costs, reduce the amount of space needed for freezers scattered across the institution, and maintain better sample integrity.  Again an area that the NIH should be thinking about--how many studies has the NIH funded which wind up collecting the same samples over again because the current samples are sitting in a freezer somewhere at an institution that the other investigator doesn't know about, or worse yet, they were thrown away because the PI left the institution or passed away, and there isn't anyone to maintain payment on the storage fees.  Some sort of centralized biobank for samples in important collections that are in these situations could really help with grant efficiencies and provide better stewardship of resources.

Those are my random musings.  I would love to hear other people's thoughts.

Roxann

The ABRF Core Admin Network (CAN) is soliciting your help articulating the value and impact of core facilities on the research environment. Given the current, and rapidly changing, climate we would like to pull together a unified statement that individuals can use in conversations with leaders, and all involved with ensuring the continuity of research and investment in core facilities. 
 
We would be grateful if you could share any tools you have that show the value of cores to the research community as well as communication practices you have used to inform the world on the importance of funding core facilities to advance research. We would like to hear your messages, also welcome thoughts and ideas you may have to help us communicate fully and effectively, and establish a unifying voice of advocacy. 
 
Please send in your materials by Friday, March 7 by responding to this thread. The CAN will consolidate all submitted materials and publish a few recommendations by mid-March. 
 
And as a reminder: whether you are a full time administrator, someone who dabbles, or just administration curious, the Core Administration Community is an active source of information and experts available to engage. Find and sign up for Core Administration Community here: Core Admin Community Home. 

Thank you!

The ABRF Core Admin Network (CAN) is soliciting your help articulating the value and impact of core facilities on the research environment. Given the current, and rapidly changing, climate we would like to pull together a unified statement that individuals can use in conversations with leaders, and all involved with ensuring the continuity of research and investment in core facilities. 
 
We would be grateful if you could share any tools you have that show the value of cores to the research community as well as communication practices you have used to inform the world on the importance of funding core facilities to advance research. We would like to hear your messages, also welcome thoughts and ideas you may have to help us communicate fully and effectively, and establish a unifying voice of advocacy. 
 
Please send in your materials by Friday, March 7 by responding to this thread. The CAN will consolidate all submitted materials and publish a few recommendations by mid-March. 
 
And as a reminder: whether you are a full time administrator, someone who dabbles, or just administration curious, the Core Administration Community is an active source of information and experts available to engage. Find and sign up for Core Administration Community here: Core Admin Community Home. 

Thank you!

The ABRF Core Admin Network (CAN) is soliciting your help articulating the value and impact of core facilities on the research environment. Given the current, and rapidly changing, climate we would like to pull together a unified statement that individuals can use in conversations with leaders, and all involved with ensuring the continuity of research and investment in core facilities. 
 
We would be grateful if you could share any tools you have that show the value of cores to the research community as well as communication practices you have used to inform the world on the importance of funding core facilities to advance research. We would like to hear your messages, also welcome thoughts and ideas you may have to help us communicate fully and effectively, and establish a unifying voice of advocacy. 
 
Please send in your materials by Friday, March 7 by responding to this thread. The CAN will consolidate all submitted materials and publish a few recommendations by mid-March. 
 
And as a reminder: whether you are a full time administrator, someone who dabbles, or just administration curious, the Core Administration Community is an active source of information and experts available to engage. Find and sign up for Core Administration Community here: Core Admin Community Home. 

Thank you!

Andrew, thanks for initiating this conversation.  I am looking forward to talk more about this with folks out at the conference in March.

Joe, I like your approach.  Your slide 3 has similarities to how I approach communicating value from 30K feet vantage point.  (More on that below)

I also try to communicate the following as simply and regularly as possible. (https://www.medschool.umaryland.edu/cibr/about/the-case-for-cores/ )

The Case for Cores

A well-informed portfolio of Cores provides the Institution and each investigator with a strategic advantage.

• Cores provide investigators with fair-priced, easy access to the services, instrumentation, and expertise needed.
• Fair-priced Cores best enable continued productivity by an investigator when she/he are in a "funding gap".
• Cores provide the Institution with the ability to provide a sustainable research infrastructure.
• Duplicative technologies are obviously a clear waste of financial resources, but underutilization carries its own cost.
• A well-informed portfolio of Cores enables the Institution to ensure instrumentation and services are kept current and meet the needs of its investigators.

Every recruitment is an opportunity to provide new or improved technologies and services that will benefit the entire research community.

• Many departments in the School of Medicine provide start-up money for recruits specifically earmarked for use at the Cores.
• Grant and contract dollars go further with Cores.
• There are Institutional opportunities to obtain funds for current investigators to use the Cores:
  • PI's can apply for internal funding with the University's ICTR.
  • Cancer Center investigators' cost to the use the Cores is reduced by direct support from UMGCCC.
  • All School of Medicine investigators are provided with Pre-Award biostatistical services at no-cost to them.

You can help to maintain our Research Core infrastructure.

• All recruits should receive a tour of the Cores.
  • Visiting recruits can request additional time with relevant Core directors.
• Contact Nick Ambulos or Tom McHugh to schedule a tour for your visiting recruit.
  
  
• Instrumentation requested by the recruited are shared with the CIBR and the Dean's Office of Research Affairs (ORA) to best avoid investments in technologies that already exist at the Cores and to identify opportunities to introduce new or improved technologies at the Cores.
  
  
• Contact CIBR and ORA are contacted when existing faculty request the purchase of an instrument costing more than $100,000.
  • While there will be instances when the Core is not the correct fit for a new instrument or highly specialized staff hire, it is always the Institution's intention to improve the research infrastructure for all investigators as often as possible.

There is a lot of financial analysis we do but like Joe pointed out there is great value in the summarizing the high level summary information on the Cores

• How many of your institution's PIs were served the last fiscal year?
• How many grants/contracts held by these PIs were served?  What was the Total Annual Value (TAV) of those grants/contracts?
• How many clinical trials were supported?

Roxann, your points on data infrastructure really "hit home".

Gabor, indirects becoming directs was the focus of a couple of "coffee talks" I found myself in last week.  If anyone wants to share their thoughts or kick around ideas on this I am interested, as well.

------------------------------
Tom McHugh
Director, Research Cores Administration
University of Maryland School of Medicine

Original Message:
Sent: 02-19-2025 13:18
From: Andrew Vinard
Subject: Core Value Proposition

The ABRF Core Admin Network (CAN) is soliciting your help articulating the value and impact of core facilities on the research environment. Given the current, and rapidly changing, climate we would like to pull together a unified statement that individuals can use in conversations with leaders, and all involved with ensuring the continuity of research and investment in core facilities. 
 
We would be grateful if you could share any tools you have that show the value of cores to the research community as well as communication practices you have used to inform the world on the importance of funding core facilities to advance research. We would like to hear your messages, also welcome thoughts and ideas you may have to help us communicate fully and effectively, and establish a unifying voice of advocacy. 
 
Please send in your materials by Friday, March 7 by responding to this thread. The CAN will consolidate all submitted materials and publish a few recommendations by mid-March. 
 
And as a reminder: whether you are a full time administrator, someone who dabbles, or just administration curious, the Core Administration Community is an active source of information and experts available to engage. Find and sign up for Core Administration Community here: Core Admin Community Home. 

Thank you!

------------------------------
Andrew Vinard
Director for Research Infrastructure Support
Tufts University
------------------------------

The metrics at the end are especially important because they are the language of the finance people. 

• How many of your institution's PIs were served the last fiscal year?
• How many grants/contracts held by these PIs were served?  What was the Total Annual Value (TAV) of those grants/contracts?
• How many clinical trials were supported?

We also include numbers of publications and some cores try to track abstracts presented at meetings too.  Although these really are about past years' work, not work in the last year.  What about core staff who presented at meetings?  Some institutions consider this type of visibility as important to their brand. 

This earlier point may raise a red flag, at least the way it is worded here:

"Fair-priced Cores best enable continued productivity by an investigator when she/he are in a "funding gap"."

Cores that have to bill do not have the authority to extend services to a lab that cannot pay.  This is the purview of upper level administration.  If the PI wants to use the core, they need emergency support.  Everybody pays.  Or the core needs a letter explicitly saying to support a specific PI (typically when applying for a new grant or wrapping up promising patentable work) so that the core won't be penalized for doing unbillable work.  Think of this as a voucher. 

Helping the underfunded may be an important role cores have, but be careful how you present this and be careful how it shows up on your balance sheet.

------------------------------
Michael Cammer
Sr. Research Scientist
NYU School of Medicine Langone Medical Center

Original Message:
Sent: 02-24-2025 09:45
From: Tom McHugh
Subject: Core Value Proposition

Andrew, thanks for initiating this conversation.  I am looking forward to talk more about this with folks out at the conference in March.

Joe, I like your approach.  Your slide 3 has similarities to how I approach communicating value from 30K feet vantage point.  (More on that below)

I also try to communicate the following as simply and regularly as possible. (https://www.medschool.umaryland.edu/cibr/about/the-case-for-cores/ )

The Case for Cores

A well-informed portfolio of Cores provides the Institution and each investigator with a strategic advantage.

• Cores provide investigators with fair-priced, easy access to the services, instrumentation, and expertise needed.
• Fair-priced Cores best enable continued productivity by an investigator when she/he are in a "funding gap".
• Cores provide the Institution with the ability to provide a sustainable research infrastructure.
• Duplicative technologies are obviously a clear waste of financial resources, but underutilization carries its own cost.
• A well-informed portfolio of Cores enables the Institution to ensure instrumentation and services are kept current and meet the needs of its investigators.

Every recruitment is an opportunity to provide new or improved technologies and services that will benefit the entire research community.

• Many departments in the School of Medicine provide start-up money for recruits specifically earmarked for use at the Cores.
• Grant and contract dollars go further with Cores.
• There are Institutional opportunities to obtain funds for current investigators to use the Cores:
  • PI's can apply for internal funding with the University's ICTR.
  • Cancer Center investigators' cost to the use the Cores is reduced by direct support from UMGCCC.
  • All School of Medicine investigators are provided with Pre-Award biostatistical services at no-cost to them.

You can help to maintain our Research Core infrastructure.

• All recruits should receive a tour of the Cores.
  • Visiting recruits can request additional time with relevant Core directors.
• Contact Nick Ambulos or Tom McHugh to schedule a tour for your visiting recruit.
  
  
• Instrumentation requested by the recruited are shared with the CIBR and the Dean's Office of Research Affairs (ORA) to best avoid investments in technologies that already exist at the Cores and to identify opportunities to introduce new or improved technologies at the Cores.
  
  
• Contact CIBR and ORA are contacted when existing faculty request the purchase of an instrument costing more than $100,000.
  • While there will be instances when the Core is not the correct fit for a new instrument or highly specialized staff hire, it is always the Institution's intention to improve the research infrastructure for all investigators as often as possible.

There is a lot of financial analysis we do but like Joe pointed out there is great value in the summarizing the high level summary information on the Cores

• How many of your institution's PIs were served the last fiscal year?
• How many grants/contracts held by these PIs were served?  What was the Total Annual Value (TAV) of those grants/contracts?
• How many clinical trials were supported?

Roxann, your points on data infrastructure really "hit home".

Gabor, indirects becoming directs was the focus of a couple of "coffee talks" I found myself in last week.  If anyone wants to share their thoughts or kick around ideas on this I am interested, as well.

------------------------------
Tom McHugh
Director, Research Cores Administration
University of Maryland School of Medicine

Original Message:
Sent: 02-19-2025 13:18
From: Andrew Vinard
Subject: Core Value Proposition

The ABRF Core Admin Network (CAN) is soliciting your help articulating the value and impact of core facilities on the research environment. Given the current, and rapidly changing, climate we would like to pull together a unified statement that individuals can use in conversations with leaders, and all involved with ensuring the continuity of research and investment in core facilities. 
 
We would be grateful if you could share any tools you have that show the value of cores to the research community as well as communication practices you have used to inform the world on the importance of funding core facilities to advance research. We would like to hear your messages, also welcome thoughts and ideas you may have to help us communicate fully and effectively, and establish a unifying voice of advocacy. 
 
Please send in your materials by Friday, March 7 by responding to this thread. The CAN will consolidate all submitted materials and publish a few recommendations by mid-March. 
 
And as a reminder: whether you are a full time administrator, someone who dabbles, or just administration curious, the Core Administration Community is an active source of information and experts available to engage. Find and sign up for Core Administration Community here: Core Admin Community Home. 

Thank you!

------------------------------
Andrew Vinard
Director for Research Infrastructure Support
Tufts University
------------------------------

The ABRF Core Admin Network (CAN) is soliciting your help articulating the value and impact of core facilities on the research environment. Given the current, and rapidly changing, climate we would like to pull together a unified statement that individuals can use in conversations with leaders, and all involved with ensuring the continuity of research and investment in core facilities. 
 
We would be grateful if you could share any tools you have that show the value of cores to the research community as well as communication practices you have used to inform the world on the importance of funding core facilities to advance research. We would like to hear your messages, also welcome thoughts and ideas you may have to help us communicate fully and effectively, and establish a unifying voice of advocacy. 
 
Please send in your materials by Friday, March 7 by responding to this thread. The CAN will consolidate all submitted materials and publish a few recommendations by mid-March. 
 
And as a reminder: whether you are a full time administrator, someone who dabbles, or just administration curious, the Core Administration Community is an active source of information and experts available to engage. Find and sign up for Core Administration Community here: Core Admin Community Home. 

Thank you!

This is such an important discussion, especially right now. We also track number of users, labs, hours/services, and grant dollars served. Account numbers in our system automatically code for the type of funding (extramural, restricted, discretionary, startup, etc), so for the past several years I've been pulling out the number of faculty who are using their startups in the cores to highlight the early career researchers we are supporting. Eventually I'd like to tie that back to grants these researchers later receive, but we haven't gotten there yet. I'm happy to share some examples from some of our core facilities. 

Like CU Boulder, Purdue is fairly decentralized, although that is changing. One thing we currently struggle with is a large number of departments and colleges who purchase high end equipment for faculty as part of a startup, that then either languishes in a lab mostly unused, or the PI tries to turn it into a single instrument recharge center when they realize they cannot maintain a service contract. I have one great example of a scope that we convinced a faculty member to put in a core facility instead of his own lab, and he was given funds to use the instrument. That instrument is now used by nearly 30 labs and 50 users. Happy to share that data as well. 
We are also working on developing metrics to highlight how many graduate student theses and dissertations we support, as well as more detailed financial ROI metrics.

One thing we are trying to do is present a variety of metrics so that we can demonstrate impact to different stakeholders. Sometimes the financial aspects are more important, and sometimes we need to highlight student support and workforce development, or scientific impact. So we're developing a portfolio of metrics that addresses all those aspects. 

The ABRF Core Admin Network (CAN) is soliciting your help articulating the value and impact of core facilities on the research environment. Given the current, and rapidly changing, climate we would like to pull together a unified statement that individuals can use in conversations with leaders, and all involved with ensuring the continuity of research and investment in core facilities. 
 
We would be grateful if you could share any tools you have that show the value of cores to the research community as well as communication practices you have used to inform the world on the importance of funding core facilities to advance research. We would like to hear your messages, also welcome thoughts and ideas you may have to help us communicate fully and effectively, and establish a unifying voice of advocacy. 
 
Please send in your materials by Friday, March 7 by responding to this thread. The CAN will consolidate all submitted materials and publish a few recommendations by mid-March. 
 
And as a reminder: whether you are a full time administrator, someone who dabbles, or just administration curious, the Core Administration Community is an active source of information and experts available to engage. Find and sign up for Core Administration Community here: Core Admin Community Home. 

Thank you!

While efficiency/pricing is inherent to the core business model, it is a mistake to lead with cost. What cores provide is access, with a very low barrier to entry, to capabilities that cannot be delivered through the individual PI model. This is done through highly skilled staff, specialized equipment, and specialized infrastructure (location, power, networking, vibration mitigation....). Emphasis needs to be on the fact that PI's can collaborate with leaders in the relevant fields quickly and efficiently, that combined needs enable more rapid refresh of equipment to keep state-of-the-art, and that the model allows optimizes researchers' ability to customize experiments with the ability to maintain equipment at a high level of performance. The argument should not be that cores make it cheaper. Cores make it possible!

Andy

This is such an important discussion, especially right now. We also track number of users, labs, hours/services, and grant dollars served. Account numbers in our system automatically code for the type of funding (extramural, restricted, discretionary, startup, etc), so for the past several years I've been pulling out the number of faculty who are using their startups in the cores to highlight the early career researchers we are supporting. Eventually I'd like to tie that back to grants these researchers later receive, but we haven't gotten there yet. I'm happy to share some examples from some of our core facilities. 

Like CU Boulder, Purdue is fairly decentralized, although that is changing. One thing we currently struggle with is a large number of departments and colleges who purchase high end equipment for faculty as part of a startup, that then either languishes in a lab mostly unused, or the PI tries to turn it into a single instrument recharge center when they realize they cannot maintain a service contract. I have one great example of a scope that we convinced a faculty member to put in a core facility instead of his own lab, and he was given funds to use the instrument. That instrument is now used by nearly 30 labs and 50 users. Happy to share that data as well. 
We are also working on developing metrics to highlight how many graduate student theses and dissertations we support, as well as more detailed financial ROI metrics.

One thing we are trying to do is present a variety of metrics so that we can demonstrate impact to different stakeholders. Sometimes the financial aspects are more important, and sometimes we need to highlight student support and workforce development, or scientific impact. So we're developing a portfolio of metrics that addresses all those aspects. 

The ABRF Core Admin Network (CAN) is soliciting your help articulating the value and impact of core facilities on the research environment. Given the current, and rapidly changing, climate we would like to pull together a unified statement that individuals can use in conversations with leaders, and all involved with ensuring the continuity of research and investment in core facilities. 
 
We would be grateful if you could share any tools you have that show the value of cores to the research community as well as communication practices you have used to inform the world on the importance of funding core facilities to advance research. We would like to hear your messages, also welcome thoughts and ideas you may have to help us communicate fully and effectively, and establish a unifying voice of advocacy. 
 
Please send in your materials by Friday, March 7 by responding to this thread. The CAN will consolidate all submitted materials and publish a few recommendations by mid-March. 
 
And as a reminder: whether you are a full time administrator, someone who dabbles, or just administration curious, the Core Administration Community is an active source of information and experts available to engage. Find and sign up for Core Administration Community here: Core Admin Community Home. 

Thank you!

While efficiency/pricing is inherent to the core business model, it is a mistake to lead with cost. What cores provide is access, with a very low barrier to entry, to capabilities that cannot be delivered through the individual PI model. This is done through highly skilled staff, specialized equipment, and specialized infrastructure (location, power, networking, vibration mitigation....). Emphasis needs to be on the fact that PI's can collaborate with leaders in the relevant fields quickly and efficiently, that combined needs enable more rapid refresh of equipment to keep state-of-the-art, and that the model allows optimizes researchers' ability to customize experiments with the ability to maintain equipment at a high level of performance. The argument should not be that cores make it cheaper. Cores make it possible!

Andy

This is such an important discussion, especially right now. We also track number of users, labs, hours/services, and grant dollars served. Account numbers in our system automatically code for the type of funding (extramural, restricted, discretionary, startup, etc), so for the past several years I've been pulling out the number of faculty who are using their startups in the cores to highlight the early career researchers we are supporting. Eventually I'd like to tie that back to grants these researchers later receive, but we haven't gotten there yet. I'm happy to share some examples from some of our core facilities. 

Like CU Boulder, Purdue is fairly decentralized, although that is changing. One thing we currently struggle with is a large number of departments and colleges who purchase high end equipment for faculty as part of a startup, that then either languishes in a lab mostly unused, or the PI tries to turn it into a single instrument recharge center when they realize they cannot maintain a service contract. I have one great example of a scope that we convinced a faculty member to put in a core facility instead of his own lab, and he was given funds to use the instrument. That instrument is now used by nearly 30 labs and 50 users. Happy to share that data as well. 
We are also working on developing metrics to highlight how many graduate student theses and dissertations we support, as well as more detailed financial ROI metrics.

One thing we are trying to do is present a variety of metrics so that we can demonstrate impact to different stakeholders. Sometimes the financial aspects are more important, and sometimes we need to highlight student support and workforce development, or scientific impact. So we're developing a portfolio of metrics that addresses all those aspects. 

The ABRF Core Admin Network (CAN) is soliciting your help articulating the value and impact of core facilities on the research environment. Given the current, and rapidly changing, climate we would like to pull together a unified statement that individuals can use in conversations with leaders, and all involved with ensuring the continuity of research and investment in core facilities. 
 
We would be grateful if you could share any tools you have that show the value of cores to the research community as well as communication practices you have used to inform the world on the importance of funding core facilities to advance research. We would like to hear your messages, also welcome thoughts and ideas you may have to help us communicate fully and effectively, and establish a unifying voice of advocacy. 
 
Please send in your materials by Friday, March 7 by responding to this thread. The CAN will consolidate all submitted materials and publish a few recommendations by mid-March. 
 
And as a reminder: whether you are a full time administrator, someone who dabbles, or just administration curious, the Core Administration Community is an active source of information and experts available to engage. Find and sign up for Core Administration Community here: Core Admin Community Home. 

Thank you!

I love this summary, Andy. And I absolutely agree, we need to be talking about cores as collaborators, as Nicole said, and not service providers. We have been making that case for years, and are slowly starting to gain traction.  Another thing we try to do is to tie back cores to the university's strategic initiatives, and show how we support those. We usually lead with contributions to science, but sometimes the financial discussion becomes necessary. We have been facing a push by central finance for many years to completely eliminate operating support for the cores. It has so far not materialized, in part because we are able to show that cores are a critical part of the university's core mission, which could not be carried out without them. And sometimes we need to translate that into dollars, to draw the direct line from keeping equipment maintained and state-of-the-art and staffed by experts to the ability of researchers to bring grant dollars into the institution.

While efficiency/pricing is inherent to the core business model, it is a mistake to lead with cost. What cores provide is access, with a very low barrier to entry, to capabilities that cannot be delivered through the individual PI model. This is done through highly skilled staff, specialized equipment, and specialized infrastructure (location, power, networking, vibration mitigation....). Emphasis needs to be on the fact that PI's can collaborate with leaders in the relevant fields quickly and efficiently, that combined needs enable more rapid refresh of equipment to keep state-of-the-art, and that the model allows optimizes researchers' ability to customize experiments with the ability to maintain equipment at a high level of performance. The argument should not be that cores make it cheaper. Cores make it possible!

Andy

This is such an important discussion, especially right now. We also track number of users, labs, hours/services, and grant dollars served. Account numbers in our system automatically code for the type of funding (extramural, restricted, discretionary, startup, etc), so for the past several years I've been pulling out the number of faculty who are using their startups in the cores to highlight the early career researchers we are supporting. Eventually I'd like to tie that back to grants these researchers later receive, but we haven't gotten there yet. I'm happy to share some examples from some of our core facilities. 

Like CU Boulder, Purdue is fairly decentralized, although that is changing. One thing we currently struggle with is a large number of departments and colleges who purchase high end equipment for faculty as part of a startup, that then either languishes in a lab mostly unused, or the PI tries to turn it into a single instrument recharge center when they realize they cannot maintain a service contract. I have one great example of a scope that we convinced a faculty member to put in a core facility instead of his own lab, and he was given funds to use the instrument. That instrument is now used by nearly 30 labs and 50 users. Happy to share that data as well. 
We are also working on developing metrics to highlight how many graduate student theses and dissertations we support, as well as more detailed financial ROI metrics.

One thing we are trying to do is present a variety of metrics so that we can demonstrate impact to different stakeholders. Sometimes the financial aspects are more important, and sometimes we need to highlight student support and workforce development, or scientific impact. So we're developing a portfolio of metrics that addresses all those aspects. 

The ABRF Core Admin Network (CAN) is soliciting your help articulating the value and impact of core facilities on the research environment. Given the current, and rapidly changing, climate we would like to pull together a unified statement that individuals can use in conversations with leaders, and all involved with ensuring the continuity of research and investment in core facilities. 
 
We would be grateful if you could share any tools you have that show the value of cores to the research community as well as communication practices you have used to inform the world on the importance of funding core facilities to advance research. We would like to hear your messages, also welcome thoughts and ideas you may have to help us communicate fully and effectively, and establish a unifying voice of advocacy. 
 
Please send in your materials by Friday, March 7 by responding to this thread. The CAN will consolidate all submitted materials and publish a few recommendations by mid-March. 
 
And as a reminder: whether you are a full time administrator, someone who dabbles, or just administration curious, the Core Administration Community is an active source of information and experts available to engage. Find and sign up for Core Administration Community here: Core Admin Community Home. 

Thank you!

All great observations and many learning points for me, thank you all for sharing.

One last comment (not sure if mentioned) is about EDUCATING the scientists. Many times, we divert or push back experiments because it doesn't make any sense to run them as they would like to. That's both better science (hence collaboration, not a service, many of you pointed this out) and less $/funding waste.

I love this summary, Andy. And I absolutely agree, we need to be talking about cores as collaborators, as Nicole said, and not service providers. We have been making that case for years, and are slowly starting to gain traction.  Another thing we try to do is to tie back cores to the university's strategic initiatives, and show how we support those. We usually lead with contributions to science, but sometimes the financial discussion becomes necessary. We have been facing a push by central finance for many years to completely eliminate operating support for the cores. It has so far not materialized, in part because we are able to show that cores are a critical part of the university's core mission, which could not be carried out without them. And sometimes we need to translate that into dollars, to draw the direct line from keeping equipment maintained and state-of-the-art and staffed by experts to the ability of researchers to bring grant dollars into the institution.

While efficiency/pricing is inherent to the core business model, it is a mistake to lead with cost. What cores provide is access, with a very low barrier to entry, to capabilities that cannot be delivered through the individual PI model. This is done through highly skilled staff, specialized equipment, and specialized infrastructure (location, power, networking, vibration mitigation....). Emphasis needs to be on the fact that PI's can collaborate with leaders in the relevant fields quickly and efficiently, that combined needs enable more rapid refresh of equipment to keep state-of-the-art, and that the model allows optimizes researchers' ability to customize experiments with the ability to maintain equipment at a high level of performance. The argument should not be that cores make it cheaper. Cores make it possible!

Andy

This is such an important discussion, especially right now. We also track number of users, labs, hours/services, and grant dollars served. Account numbers in our system automatically code for the type of funding (extramural, restricted, discretionary, startup, etc), so for the past several years I've been pulling out the number of faculty who are using their startups in the cores to highlight the early career researchers we are supporting. Eventually I'd like to tie that back to grants these researchers later receive, but we haven't gotten there yet. I'm happy to share some examples from some of our core facilities. 

Like CU Boulder, Purdue is fairly decentralized, although that is changing. One thing we currently struggle with is a large number of departments and colleges who purchase high end equipment for faculty as part of a startup, that then either languishes in a lab mostly unused, or the PI tries to turn it into a single instrument recharge center when they realize they cannot maintain a service contract. I have one great example of a scope that we convinced a faculty member to put in a core facility instead of his own lab, and he was given funds to use the instrument. That instrument is now used by nearly 30 labs and 50 users. Happy to share that data as well. 
We are also working on developing metrics to highlight how many graduate student theses and dissertations we support, as well as more detailed financial ROI metrics.

One thing we are trying to do is present a variety of metrics so that we can demonstrate impact to different stakeholders. Sometimes the financial aspects are more important, and sometimes we need to highlight student support and workforce development, or scientific impact. So we're developing a portfolio of metrics that addresses all those aspects. 

The ABRF Core Admin Network (CAN) is soliciting your help articulating the value and impact of core facilities on the research environment. Given the current, and rapidly changing, climate we would like to pull together a unified statement that individuals can use in conversations with leaders, and all involved with ensuring the continuity of research and investment in core facilities. 
 
We would be grateful if you could share any tools you have that show the value of cores to the research community as well as communication practices you have used to inform the world on the importance of funding core facilities to advance research. We would like to hear your messages, also welcome thoughts and ideas you may have to help us communicate fully and effectively, and establish a unifying voice of advocacy. 
 
Please send in your materials by Friday, March 7 by responding to this thread. The CAN will consolidate all submitted materials and publish a few recommendations by mid-March. 
 
And as a reminder: whether you are a full time administrator, someone who dabbles, or just administration curious, the Core Administration Community is an active source of information and experts available to engage. Find and sign up for Core Administration Community here: Core Admin Community Home. 

Thank you!

Emanuele this is such an important point, the cost SAVINGS from their expertise is so critical. But the hard part is putting our finger on data to prove that number.

As a follow up to all the other comments above (thank you as i have added more metrics to my to-do list) at UNC we are doing the below.

1. We have been presenting to everyone and anyone who would listen to us about cores. I have attached our basic slide deck that we present to those groups.
2. Chris Gregory and Kara Clissold are working on a publication tracking system that will help us nail down the publications, citations, patents that come out of our cores to show our research impact.
3. We are pushing many cores to iLabs to be able to create user and usage data by core, category, school, and beyond. This gives us information from lab spending, % of usage, breakdown of usage by departments, schools, and by funding.
4. We have also created tableau reports that are available to the departmental and school leadership of the cores that provides impactful data on their cores finances and will continue to be upgraded to include the user/usage information.
5. I would LOVE to get the student impact by showing the number of students trained, the number of dissertations that sited the cores, and number of courses taught by our core directors. **Still working on how to get this data.
6. Also just to say we are working as much as possible to get in front of chairs, center directors, and new hires to have as many new pieces of equipment purchased (that make sense) to go into a core facility instead of in a lab. Money isnt growing on research trees any more and space is already at a premium!

Thank you all for your insights and i hope we all can find the metrics that are the most impactful to make sure we are all hammering home why our core facilities are so important and should be considered infrastructure for our research communities.

All great observations and many learning points for me, thank you all for sharing.

One last comment (not sure if mentioned) is about EDUCATING the scientists. Many times, we divert or push back experiments because it doesn't make any sense to run them as they would like to. That's both better science (hence collaboration, not a service, many of you pointed this out) and less $/funding waste.

I love this summary, Andy. And I absolutely agree, we need to be talking about cores as collaborators, as Nicole said, and not service providers. We have been making that case for years, and are slowly starting to gain traction.  Another thing we try to do is to tie back cores to the university's strategic initiatives, and show how we support those. We usually lead with contributions to science, but sometimes the financial discussion becomes necessary. We have been facing a push by central finance for many years to completely eliminate operating support for the cores. It has so far not materialized, in part because we are able to show that cores are a critical part of the university's core mission, which could not be carried out without them. And sometimes we need to translate that into dollars, to draw the direct line from keeping equipment maintained and state-of-the-art and staffed by experts to the ability of researchers to bring grant dollars into the institution.

While efficiency/pricing is inherent to the core business model, it is a mistake to lead with cost. What cores provide is access, with a very low barrier to entry, to capabilities that cannot be delivered through the individual PI model. This is done through highly skilled staff, specialized equipment, and specialized infrastructure (location, power, networking, vibration mitigation....). Emphasis needs to be on the fact that PI's can collaborate with leaders in the relevant fields quickly and efficiently, that combined needs enable more rapid refresh of equipment to keep state-of-the-art, and that the model allows optimizes researchers' ability to customize experiments with the ability to maintain equipment at a high level of performance. The argument should not be that cores make it cheaper. Cores make it possible!

Andy

This is such an important discussion, especially right now. We also track number of users, labs, hours/services, and grant dollars served. Account numbers in our system automatically code for the type of funding (extramural, restricted, discretionary, startup, etc), so for the past several years I've been pulling out the number of faculty who are using their startups in the cores to highlight the early career researchers we are supporting. Eventually I'd like to tie that back to grants these researchers later receive, but we haven't gotten there yet. I'm happy to share some examples from some of our core facilities. 

Like CU Boulder, Purdue is fairly decentralized, although that is changing. One thing we currently struggle with is a large number of departments and colleges who purchase high end equipment for faculty as part of a startup, that then either languishes in a lab mostly unused, or the PI tries to turn it into a single instrument recharge center when they realize they cannot maintain a service contract. I have one great example of a scope that we convinced a faculty member to put in a core facility instead of his own lab, and he was given funds to use the instrument. That instrument is now used by nearly 30 labs and 50 users. Happy to share that data as well. 
We are also working on developing metrics to highlight how many graduate student theses and dissertations we support, as well as more detailed financial ROI metrics.

One thing we are trying to do is present a variety of metrics so that we can demonstrate impact to different stakeholders. Sometimes the financial aspects are more important, and sometimes we need to highlight student support and workforce development, or scientific impact. So we're developing a portfolio of metrics that addresses all those aspects. 

The ABRF Core Admin Network (CAN) is soliciting your help articulating the value and impact of core facilities on the research environment. Given the current, and rapidly changing, climate we would like to pull together a unified statement that individuals can use in conversations with leaders, and all involved with ensuring the continuity of research and investment in core facilities. 
 
We would be grateful if you could share any tools you have that show the value of cores to the research community as well as communication practices you have used to inform the world on the importance of funding core facilities to advance research. We would like to hear your messages, also welcome thoughts and ideas you may have to help us communicate fully and effectively, and establish a unifying voice of advocacy. 
 
Please send in your materials by Friday, March 7 by responding to this thread. The CAN will consolidate all submitted materials and publish a few recommendations by mid-March. 
 
And as a reminder: whether you are a full time administrator, someone who dabbles, or just administration curious, the Core Administration Community is an active source of information and experts available to engage. Find and sign up for Core Administration Community here: Core Admin Community Home. 

Thank you!

Thanks to everyone who shared notes and resources. While individual advocacy for core facility value is important, a collective statement from a national group of core facility directors would carry significantly more weight, and would be a nice complementary document to support impact metrics from an individual core or set of cores. Imagine a document, endorsed by 100+ directors (and possibly supported by publications), outlining key benefits of shared resource facilities and, potentially, recommendations for research efficiency and stewardship, including no-brainers like don't let every PI buy an instrument that's already available in a core, or could be used by 15 other PIs, as a part of their startup package. 

If a document like this doesn't exist, I think it's a powerful tool we're missing–one that could dramatically strengthen our advocacy for shared facilities to play a larger role in future research infrastructure and operations. I'd love to discuss this further with others who are interested in organizing an effort to create something like this.

Emanuele this is such an important point, the cost SAVINGS from their expertise is so critical. But the hard part is putting our finger on data to prove that number.

As a follow up to all the other comments above (thank you as i have added more metrics to my to-do list) at UNC we are doing the below.

1. We have been presenting to everyone and anyone who would listen to us about cores. I have attached our basic slide deck that we present to those groups.
2. Chris Gregory and Kara Clissold are working on a publication tracking system that will help us nail down the publications, citations, patents that come out of our cores to show our research impact.
3. We are pushing many cores to iLabs to be able to create user and usage data by core, category, school, and beyond. This gives us information from lab spending, % of usage, breakdown of usage by departments, schools, and by funding.
4. We have also created tableau reports that are available to the departmental and school leadership of the cores that provides impactful data on their cores finances and will continue to be upgraded to include the user/usage information.
5. I would LOVE to get the student impact by showing the number of students trained, the number of dissertations that sited the cores, and number of courses taught by our core directors. **Still working on how to get this data.
6. Also just to say we are working as much as possible to get in front of chairs, center directors, and new hires to have as many new pieces of equipment purchased (that make sense) to go into a core facility instead of in a lab. Money isnt growing on research trees any more and space is already at a premium!

Thank you all for your insights and i hope we all can find the metrics that are the most impactful to make sure we are all hammering home why our core facilities are so important and should be considered infrastructure for our research communities.

All great observations and many learning points for me, thank you all for sharing.

One last comment (not sure if mentioned) is about EDUCATING the scientists. Many times, we divert or push back experiments because it doesn't make any sense to run them as they would like to. That's both better science (hence collaboration, not a service, many of you pointed this out) and less $/funding waste.

I love this summary, Andy. And I absolutely agree, we need to be talking about cores as collaborators, as Nicole said, and not service providers. We have been making that case for years, and are slowly starting to gain traction.  Another thing we try to do is to tie back cores to the university's strategic initiatives, and show how we support those. We usually lead with contributions to science, but sometimes the financial discussion becomes necessary. We have been facing a push by central finance for many years to completely eliminate operating support for the cores. It has so far not materialized, in part because we are able to show that cores are a critical part of the university's core mission, which could not be carried out without them. And sometimes we need to translate that into dollars, to draw the direct line from keeping equipment maintained and state-of-the-art and staffed by experts to the ability of researchers to bring grant dollars into the institution.

While efficiency/pricing is inherent to the core business model, it is a mistake to lead with cost. What cores provide is access, with a very low barrier to entry, to capabilities that cannot be delivered through the individual PI model. This is done through highly skilled staff, specialized equipment, and specialized infrastructure (location, power, networking, vibration mitigation....). Emphasis needs to be on the fact that PI's can collaborate with leaders in the relevant fields quickly and efficiently, that combined needs enable more rapid refresh of equipment to keep state-of-the-art, and that the model allows optimizes researchers' ability to customize experiments with the ability to maintain equipment at a high level of performance. The argument should not be that cores make it cheaper. Cores make it possible!

Andy

This is such an important discussion, especially right now. We also track number of users, labs, hours/services, and grant dollars served. Account numbers in our system automatically code for the type of funding (extramural, restricted, discretionary, startup, etc), so for the past several years I've been pulling out the number of faculty who are using their startups in the cores to highlight the early career researchers we are supporting. Eventually I'd like to tie that back to grants these researchers later receive, but we haven't gotten there yet. I'm happy to share some examples from some of our core facilities. 

Like CU Boulder, Purdue is fairly decentralized, although that is changing. One thing we currently struggle with is a large number of departments and colleges who purchase high end equipment for faculty as part of a startup, that then either languishes in a lab mostly unused, or the PI tries to turn it into a single instrument recharge center when they realize they cannot maintain a service contract. I have one great example of a scope that we convinced a faculty member to put in a core facility instead of his own lab, and he was given funds to use the instrument. That instrument is now used by nearly 30 labs and 50 users. Happy to share that data as well. 
We are also working on developing metrics to highlight how many graduate student theses and dissertations we support, as well as more detailed financial ROI metrics.

One thing we are trying to do is present a variety of metrics so that we can demonstrate impact to different stakeholders. Sometimes the financial aspects are more important, and sometimes we need to highlight student support and workforce development, or scientific impact. So we're developing a portfolio of metrics that addresses all those aspects. 

The ABRF Core Admin Network (CAN) is soliciting your help articulating the value and impact of core facilities on the research environment. Given the current, and rapidly changing, climate we would like to pull together a unified statement that individuals can use in conversations with leaders, and all involved with ensuring the continuity of research and investment in core facilities. 
 
We would be grateful if you could share any tools you have that show the value of cores to the research community as well as communication practices you have used to inform the world on the importance of funding core facilities to advance research. We would like to hear your messages, also welcome thoughts and ideas you may have to help us communicate fully and effectively, and establish a unifying voice of advocacy. 
 
Please send in your materials by Friday, March 7 by responding to this thread. The CAN will consolidate all submitted materials and publish a few recommendations by mid-March. 
 
And as a reminder: whether you are a full time administrator, someone who dabbles, or just administration curious, the Core Administration Community is an active source of information and experts available to engage. Find and sign up for Core Administration Community here: Core Admin Community Home. 

Thank you!

Thanks to everyone who shared notes and resources. While individual advocacy for core facility value is important, a collective statement from a national group of core facility directors would carry significantly more weight, and would be a nice complementary document to support impact metrics from an individual core or set of cores. Imagine a document, endorsed by 100+ directors (and possibly supported by publications), outlining key benefits of shared resource facilities and, potentially, recommendations for research efficiency and stewardship, including no-brainers like don't let every PI buy an instrument that's already available in a core, or could be used by 15 other PIs, as a part of their startup package. 

If a document like this doesn't exist, I think it's a powerful tool we're missing–one that could dramatically strengthen our advocacy for shared facilities to play a larger role in future research infrastructure and operations. I'd love to discuss this further with others who are interested in organizing an effort to create something like this.

Emanuele this is such an important point, the cost SAVINGS from their expertise is so critical. But the hard part is putting our finger on data to prove that number.

As a follow up to all the other comments above (thank you as i have added more metrics to my to-do list) at UNC we are doing the below.

1. We have been presenting to everyone and anyone who would listen to us about cores. I have attached our basic slide deck that we present to those groups.
2. Chris Gregory and Kara Clissold are working on a publication tracking system that will help us nail down the publications, citations, patents that come out of our cores to show our research impact.
3. We are pushing many cores to iLabs to be able to create user and usage data by core, category, school, and beyond. This gives us information from lab spending, % of usage, breakdown of usage by departments, schools, and by funding.
4. We have also created tableau reports that are available to the departmental and school leadership of the cores that provides impactful data on their cores finances and will continue to be upgraded to include the user/usage information.
5. I would LOVE to get the student impact by showing the number of students trained, the number of dissertations that sited the cores, and number of courses taught by our core directors. **Still working on how to get this data.
6. Also just to say we are working as much as possible to get in front of chairs, center directors, and new hires to have as many new pieces of equipment purchased (that make sense) to go into a core facility instead of in a lab. Money isnt growing on research trees any more and space is already at a premium!

Thank you all for your insights and i hope we all can find the metrics that are the most impactful to make sure we are all hammering home why our core facilities are so important and should be considered infrastructure for our research communities.

All great observations and many learning points for me, thank you all for sharing.

One last comment (not sure if mentioned) is about EDUCATING the scientists. Many times, we divert or push back experiments because it doesn't make any sense to run them as they would like to. That's both better science (hence collaboration, not a service, many of you pointed this out) and less $/funding waste.

I love this summary, Andy. And I absolutely agree, we need to be talking about cores as collaborators, as Nicole said, and not service providers. We have been making that case for years, and are slowly starting to gain traction.  Another thing we try to do is to tie back cores to the university's strategic initiatives, and show how we support those. We usually lead with contributions to science, but sometimes the financial discussion becomes necessary. We have been facing a push by central finance for many years to completely eliminate operating support for the cores. It has so far not materialized, in part because we are able to show that cores are a critical part of the university's core mission, which could not be carried out without them. And sometimes we need to translate that into dollars, to draw the direct line from keeping equipment maintained and state-of-the-art and staffed by experts to the ability of researchers to bring grant dollars into the institution.

While efficiency/pricing is inherent to the core business model, it is a mistake to lead with cost. What cores provide is access, with a very low barrier to entry, to capabilities that cannot be delivered through the individual PI model. This is done through highly skilled staff, specialized equipment, and specialized infrastructure (location, power, networking, vibration mitigation....). Emphasis needs to be on the fact that PI's can collaborate with leaders in the relevant fields quickly and efficiently, that combined needs enable more rapid refresh of equipment to keep state-of-the-art, and that the model allows optimizes researchers' ability to customize experiments with the ability to maintain equipment at a high level of performance. The argument should not be that cores make it cheaper. Cores make it possible!

Andy

This is such an important discussion, especially right now. We also track number of users, labs, hours/services, and grant dollars served. Account numbers in our system automatically code for the type of funding (extramural, restricted, discretionary, startup, etc), so for the past several years I've been pulling out the number of faculty who are using their startups in the cores to highlight the early career researchers we are supporting. Eventually I'd like to tie that back to grants these researchers later receive, but we haven't gotten there yet. I'm happy to share some examples from some of our core facilities. 

Like CU Boulder, Purdue is fairly decentralized, although that is changing. One thing we currently struggle with is a large number of departments and colleges who purchase high end equipment for faculty as part of a startup, that then either languishes in a lab mostly unused, or the PI tries to turn it into a single instrument recharge center when they realize they cannot maintain a service contract. I have one great example of a scope that we convinced a faculty member to put in a core facility instead of his own lab, and he was given funds to use the instrument. That instrument is now used by nearly 30 labs and 50 users. Happy to share that data as well. 
We are also working on developing metrics to highlight how many graduate student theses and dissertations we support, as well as more detailed financial ROI metrics.

One thing we are trying to do is present a variety of metrics so that we can demonstrate impact to different stakeholders. Sometimes the financial aspects are more important, and sometimes we need to highlight student support and workforce development, or scientific impact. So we're developing a portfolio of metrics that addresses all those aspects. 

The ABRF Core Admin Network (CAN) is soliciting your help articulating the value and impact of core facilities on the research environment. Given the current, and rapidly changing, climate we would like to pull together a unified statement that individuals can use in conversations with leaders, and all involved with ensuring the continuity of research and investment in core facilities. 
 
We would be grateful if you could share any tools you have that show the value of cores to the research community as well as communication practices you have used to inform the world on the importance of funding core facilities to advance research. We would like to hear your messages, also welcome thoughts and ideas you may have to help us communicate fully and effectively, and establish a unifying voice of advocacy. 
 
Please send in your materials by Friday, March 7 by responding to this thread. The CAN will consolidate all submitted materials and publish a few recommendations by mid-March. 
 
And as a reminder: whether you are a full time administrator, someone who dabbles, or just administration curious, the Core Administration Community is an active source of information and experts available to engage. Find and sign up for Core Administration Community here: Core Admin Community Home. 

Thank you!