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Core Facilities Benchmarking

Survey by EU-LIFE Core Facilities Working Group

The EU-LIFE Core Facilities (CF) Working Group (WG) has surveyed CFs at member institutes about their financial indicators, operational practices, as well as staff profiles and career support. The survey was carried out in autumn 2020, collecting feedback from the CF WG, covering a total of 126 CFs from 12 partner institutions. Additionally, 102 CF managers provided information about the more qualitative and operational aspects of individual CFs.

In 2021, the feedback from these surveys was analysed and a summary of our findings is available for download as a PDF here. The associated report will serve as a reference document to help EU-LIFE partner institutes share knowledge about common challenges that CFs face, how to best support their staff, and how to bring the best technology and skills to keep research and innovation at the cutting edge.

EU-LIFE Core Facilities Benchmarking

 

We anticipate that:  

  • Individual CF managers will use the report for ideas and advice on operational and/or financial strategies for developing sustainable CFs
  • Institutions will use the report to assess their support for existing facilities, and the investment and conditions necessary to create new facilities.
  • Institutions may also use the report to identify a partner institute that is better positioned on specific issues (e.g. on career support or gender balanced responsibilities) and consult them.

To follow up and confirm trends, EU-LIFE CF WG will repeat the survey every two years for financial indicators and selected key performance indicators (KPIs). The more detailed qualitative feedback from individual CF managers will be requested every four years.

If you would like to find out more about this initiative, please contact: sofie.christensen@eu-life.eu

This Core Facilities’ benchmarking survey was completed with the active participation of the members of the Core Facilities Working Group (see below) and the Core Facility managers who responded to the individual CF survey in 2021. The accounting personnel and financial controllers of participating member institutes are also acknowledged for the financial data.


EU-LIFE Partners and Core Facilities Working Group members – 2021

CRG (Spain) - Monica Morales Ballus*
CEITEC (Czech Republic) - Ondřej Hradil* & Kateřina Hošková*
IEO (Italy) - Miryam Alcalay
VIB (Belgium) - Geert van Minnebruggen*
FMI (Switzerland) – Bernhard Körn*
Institut Curie (France) – Lavanya Premvardhan*
FIMM (Finland) – Katja Kivinen*
IMBB FORTH (Greece) –  Theodoros Kosteas* & Vasiliki Theodorou*
IGC (Portugal) – Marta Monteiro & Nuno Moreno*
IIMCB (Poland) - Joanna Dodzian* & Krzysztof Skowronek*
MDC (Germany) – Jutta Steinkötter*
CeMM (Austria) – Christoph Bock
Babraham Institute (UK) – Danielle Hoyle*
NKI (The Netherlands) - Henri van Luenen*
BRIC (Denmark) - Elin Josefina Pietras

* These members of the Core Facilities Working Group actively contributed with data to the survey

Lead authors: Sofie Kjellerup Christensen (EU-LIFE) & Lavanya Premvardhan (IC)
Key editors: Henri Van Luenen (NKI) & Katja Kivinen (FIMM)
Data analysis: Sofie Kjellerup Christensen (EU-LIFE) and Lavanya Premvardhan (IC)
Survey design and collection of survey data: Monica Morales Ballus (CRG)