Although academic labs are characterized by attractive research independence, they often face financial challenges to fund their research and laboratory space. Using all available resources effectively would require college and university labs to ensure revenue flowing, careful planning, budgeting and decision-making with strong business acumen.
By choosing BaneBio, academia laboratories can get expert help to start building and maintaining their research programs successfully. We can assist with identifying appropriate supplies and lab equipment for colleges and universities as well as negotiate, observe, ask the right questions, and learn more about what resources in their core facilities and other shared lab space might be available better choice. “It is not a one-way process but a relationship-building process of high value and a long-term perspective” says Doug Bane, President and CEO of BaneBio, LLC.
BaneBio specializes in providing economical laboratory solutions to academic facilities with a limited capital budget. We have helped to create academic research dreams come true for a multitude of institutions worldwide. Search our products to explore the equipment offerings and how BaneBio can help academia research labs achieve their ultimate goals.
TRENDING HIGHLIGHTS
Academia & Scientific Lab Research
Running a University Lab
To run a university research lab, a faculty member receives a finite budget from the university department, a “start-up” budget, which can range from $500,000 to $1,000,000 or more. The research budget would depend on the research field and the type of research the faculty member would perform. The budget allows the new faculty member to purchase basic instrumentation, equipment and supplies, needed for their research and for paying the salaries of post-doctoral researchers. It is much less of a budget for faculty members at non-research based universities. On average, the cost of consumables in a scientific research lab can be from $20,000 or more per year.
Buying Lab Equipment
Funding for New Equipment
Although lab instrumentation and equipment can be funded via NSF or NIH instrument grants, these grants are often for shared instruments, to increase the efficiency and use of the instrument. New instruments typically require higher maintenance costs and trained personnel to run the instrument. Some annual service contracts that cover maintenance needs are reported to range from a $5,000 on an analytical ultracentrifuge to $100,000 or more on a state of the art transmission cryo-electron microscope. Practice shows that the money for maintenance and personnel can come from two sources: either from written commitments from users placed within the instrument grant, fees to use the instrument; or from an institutional agreement, that is usually attached to the initial grant money, which secured the instrument. However, since between 45 to 50% of every research grant won by the faculty member goes for “indirect costs”, it is retained by the university to pay for general expenses and providing an office staff. Moreover, in addition to indirect costs, the university receives the majority of any money, obtained from a patent or intellectual property, developed by their faculty members.
U.S. Government Funding Options
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF)
The two major U.S. government funded bodies that disburse money to scientists are the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NIH spearheads grant allocation to research that has health relevance, whereas the NSF funds basic science only. According to the NIH data, approximately one in five grant applications are actually being funded. There is a period of ten months to a year from a grant application until the actual time that the funding begins. Generally, grant money from NIH and NSF is often to pay for labor and consumables of a university lab. Research instrumentation and equipment can be funded through an NSF or NIH instrument grants.