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Hi everyone,

We are having an issue at UNC where PIs are purchasing equipment for their lab that is negatively impacting our cores.

Do any of your institutions have a process to stop these purchases before they happen?

Is anyone doing this centrally for all equipment purchases?

Does anyone have a rubric for approving said requests?

Thanks for any information.

Meghan

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Meghan Kraft
Director of Research Core Facilities
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill NC
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Hi Meghan,

I recently worked with our Office of Research Development (ORD) to gain access to their proposal tracking platform, and have the ability to view proposals that involve instrument purchases to ensure duplication is not occurring. I don't believe this captures PIs purchasing equipment with their start-ups, but I just flagged two pieces of equipment last week that a PI was looking to obtain that already exists in a core facility. Our VPR is very supportive of avoiding duplication and supporting our cores, which helps. 

We don't have a rubric, but I believe the next step if a proposal passes ORD would be to have a direct conversation with the PI regarding their anticipated usage in their lab (will their students be using it constantly?), plan for covering costs (including service contracts), are they aware that a core facility exists that could house this instrument, etc. Hope this helps, its a frustrating thing to happen! 

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Mary Gauvin
Montana State University
Bozeman MT
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