Hello again.
I am just about ready to make the results of my survey of NMR Facility
business and funding mechanisms. My plan is to make the first report of
the findings at the AMMRL meeting on Monday night of ENC. There, I hope
you'll tell me what else you'd like me to do w/ the data and how much
you'd like to see in a downloadable report. After the suggested
revisions are implemented, I'll make it available via our facility
website and, if possible, on the AMMRL website.
But I need more of you to respond. I have just enough data now to be
statistically significant, but the conclusions would be much more
powerful if I had more data. I will be grateful for all responses, but
I'd now especially like to hear more from:
• biochemistry & biomolecular facilities.
• chemistry & biochemistry facilities with cold/cryo probes (& their
attendant budget-skewing service contracts)
• centers for structural biology
• drug discovery centers
I thank all of you who've responded so far, and I encourage/plead/beg
the rest of you in U.S. academia to please respond w/ your data. All
responses will be completely confidential - I'm not even planning on
publishing a list identifying who responded. I don't want to tax your
time, so please make your best accurate estimates for the numbers
without excessively worrying about precision. I'm not asking for salary
or budget size, just percentages or fractions going to this or that.
Thanks for your help. I think you'll find the results very useful the
next time you have to negotiate your budget. The more people respond to
this survey, the greater the potency it will have for everyone.
- Josh
Please reply underneath each question. This is a survey, not an audit,
so please just give your best estimates for the figures. I invite you
to append an open ended discussion at the end of the survey.
OPERATIONAL MODEL
1) Is your institution public or private?
2) What department or interdepartmental entity is your facility in?
3) Is the NMR Facility manager responsible for non-NMR equipment, e.g.,
IR & mass spectrometers?
4) Is the NMR Facility part of a broader instrumentation/core facility,
e.g., an analytical or biophysics center?
5) Do you provide service (running people's samples for them, analyzing
spectra, etc.), and what do you charge for it? Do you charge for all
collaboration or just routine service work? Please discuss briefly.
6) (Updated question from previous survey): What fraction of your
facility manager's salary is covered by user fees?
REVENUE:
When you add staff salaries and benefits (INCLUDING YOUR OWN) to
cryogens, repairs, and other such items to determine total operating
expenses...
7) ... what fraction is covered by user fees?
8) ... what fraction is covered by your department?
9) ... what fraction is covered by your university or division?
10) ... what fraction is covered by contributions from individual
investigators' grants (not associated with recharge fees)?
11) ... what fraction is covered by other sources, such as portions of
a shared instrumentation grant? In general terms, please describe those
sources.
EXPENSES:
When you add staff salaries and benefits (INCLUDING YOUR OWN) to
cryogens, repairs, and other such items to determine total operating
expenses...
12) ... what fraction goes toward salaries and benefits (INCLUDING YOUR
OWN)?
13) ... what fraction goes toward cryogens?
14) ... what fraction goes toward repairs (parts+labor not covered by
service contracts)?
15) ... what fraction goes toward service contracts?
16) ... what fraction goes toward equipment purchases (probes, sample
changers, hardware upgrades, etc.)?
17) ... what fraction goes toward staff travel?
18) ... what fraction goes toward misc. supplies, such as paper, toner,
solvents, etc.?
19) ... what fraction goes toward other expenses, and what are they?
20) What aspects of your facility should be considered that are not
addressed by the questions above? Please feel free to include an
unrestricted discussion here.
21) How much does your institution charge its PIs' grants for overhead
costs? (For reference, average is approximately 53%) We would like to
see if high overhead charges correlate with strong financial support
for shared facilities.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME AND EFFORT!
Josh Kurutz, Ph.D.
Technical Director, Biomolecular NMR Facility
University of Chicago
Center for Integrative Science, room W123B
929 E. 57th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
Office: (773) 834-9805
Spectrometer room: (773) 702-4052
Cell (773) 315-5732
Fax: (208) 978-2599
nmr.bsd.uchicago.edu
Received on Thu Apr 13 2006 - 11:32:22 MST