Optimizing Institutional Approaches to Enable Research (2014)

Abstract: Challenges that face the academic research enterprise are numerous. These concerns include, but are not limited to: declines in extramural funding for investigator-initiated research, an agingfaculty workforce (the average age of securing a faculty's first R01 is over 42), insufficient funds to support faculty laboratories, and limited access to cutting-edge, next generation infrastructure and methods to support research. This manuscript describes an institutional approach to providing leading-edge core facilities and enhancing the effectiveness of their operations by implementing process improvements, managing the lifecycle of core facilities, and monitoring key core facilities' metrics. This approach has created a number of standardized, transparent processes to effectively manage central infrastructure that enables enterprise-wide research, including a process for capital equipment planning, a procedure to evaluate new cores, a method for reviewing and managing the lifecycle of existing cores (invest, maintain, or sun-down), an investment in the administration and operational efficiencies of the cores, and support for the development and implementation of new methodologies for our investigators. The execution of these processes has provided faculty with forward-looking technologies to facilitate innovative research and provide a competitive edge for extramural support.Keywords: core facilities, infrastructure, strategy, governanceIntroductionWithin the past two decades, the complexity of biomedical science has provided the impetus to design increasingly sophisticated and innovative instrumentation and services, thus enabling faculty to dramatically advance research along the entire spectrum of basic and clinical investigations. While the infrastructure for and enablers of research continue to provide the basis for these cutting-edge investigations, they come with a price to individual investigators regarding both instrumentation expense and technical expertise. As acknowledged by Angeletti, Bonewald, Jongh, Niece, Rush, and Stults ( 1999) over fifteen years ago, the model o fan individual investigator possessing a self-sufficient single laboratory, including all the necessary modern equipment to conduct competitive science, is a distant memory. The historic high-end, self-sufficient laboratories have been mostly replaced by laboratories that rely on institutionally supported infrastructure (i.e. core facilities). These core facilities enable scientific discovery by providing the latest technology, instrumentation, and technical expertise. However, those institutions that invest in enabling infrastructure are often faced with additional conundrums. These include the cost associated with maintaining/replacing existing services (Haley, 2011), developing new technologies (Slaughter, 2009), identifying highly trained faculty/staff to serve as core directors (Rey, 2007), and integrating a system to effectively monitor services that need to either grow, be maintained, or be dismantled (Haley, 2009). This manuscript addresses the enterprise-level challenge of keeping pace with and effectively managing cutting-edge, next generation infrastructure that supports the needs of scientists, allowing them to remain competitive in securing extramural funding and publishing novel discoveries. An institutional approach for enhancing the effectiveness of core infrastructure operations by implementing process improvements, managing the lifecycle of core facilities, and monitoring key core facilities' metrics is described.In 2010, the Office of Research at the University of Michigan Medical School conducted a thorough business review of its centrally managed biomedical research core facilities. As a result, the Office of Research has implemented an institutional approach to effectively manage the supporting infrastructure of our central core facilities. This includes: 1) a process for core facility capital equipment planning and acquisition, 2) a method for reviewing and managing the lifecycle of existing core facilities (invest, maintain, or sun-down), 3) a process to evaluate whether department-based core facilities should transition into the central, school-wide core facilities, 4) an investment in the administration and operational efficiencies of the core facilities, and 5) support for the development and implementation of new methodologies to make the latest techniques available to our investigators. …