We don't have policies or guidelines; if we did, one of the key issues would
be "If you build it, will they come?"  From time to time we have created
core facilities by means of extramural funding for research infrastructure.
The application requires us to list users and potential users, and
occasionally we get an award based more on potential users than existing
need.  It's fairly easy to get PIs to write a paragraph describing
experiments they WOULD do if instrument X or core facility Y were available;
once the facility is in place, though, the promised volume of work sometimes
doesn't materialize, and when the extramural funding expires the facility is
left scrambling for funds to pay for service contracts, technicians,
upgrades,etc.  I think a genuine, stable demand should exist before the
facility is created (as opposed, for example, to a single aggressive faculty
member who needs the instrument for her work)--but there is a fine line
somewhere: you DO want to enable investigators to pursue questions at the
cutting edge, and sometimes they can't do that without easy access to
instruments beyond the means of any single research grant.

-----Original Message-----
From: Youngers, Jane [mailto:xxxxxx@UTHSCSA.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2000 3:29 PM
To: xxxxxx@HRINET.ORG
Subject: Core Facilities

Here's a new topic (I think) for the list.  We are looking at how we might
better manage our existing core research facilities and develop guidelines
for establishing new ones.  By core research facility, I mean a facility
that provides support to many researchers on your campus.  The classic core
research facility is the animal facility.  But I am not really interested in
how you finance and manage that.  What I am interested in is how you
identify, finance, and manage your other core facilities such as protein
structure cores or DNA sequencing cores or microscopy cores.  Do you have
definitions of what consistututes a core facility; how are they typically
managed. how are they typically financed.  Any other guidelines or
policies/procedures you might have.  Just a website address would even help.

Thanks.

Jane
Jane A. Youngers
Director, Grants Management
Mail Code 7828
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
7703 Floyd Curl Drive
San Antonio TX  78229-3900
phone 210.567.2333
fax 210.567.2344
email xxxxxx@uthscsa.edu

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