Establishing a Department or Institutional Core/Service Center

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Definitions, Benefits, and Expectations

Institutional Core/Service Center

An institutional core actively performs services both across the institution, including different schools, departments, external institutions/industry, and actively bills for projects. An institutional core/service center is supported through a mix of institutional resources, extramural funds, as well as fee-for-service projects (internal and external). An institutional core is an officially approved recharge/service center, with an appropriate accounting structure (i.e., billing into federal and non-federal accounts) with an established business plan.  

Key Factors of Institutional Core Facilities

  • Funded beyond institutional resources/receives extramural support through federal funds, state funds, contracts, and industry.
  • Predominantly provides services across schools (SOM, SOD, SON, etc.) and multiple departments.
  • May perform services outside the university, e.g., other colleges, universities, or industry.
  • Setup as an official recharge center, cost center for Internal/External-Non Fed and Fed, actively invoices for fee-for-service projects.

Benefits of Institutional Core Status

  • Administrative support including centralized accounting/invoices, website updates and fee structure updates.
  • Cost-sharing for Core Director(s).
  • Contribution toward support for staff (e.g., 0.5 to 1.0FTE).
  • Contribution toward support for equipment service contracts (i.e., share not covered through active extramural support).
  • Has priority support from Associate Vice Chancellor for Research for capital equipment purchases to replace old equipment or establish new technologies.

Expectations of Institutional Cores

  • Directors actively seek extramural opportunities to support facilities through center grants, collaboration with individual PIs, and submission of instrumentation grants.
  • Effectively track consultations, projects, productivity metrics (abstracts, publications, grants), revenue (grants/fee-for-service) to demonstrate return on investment.
  • Development of strategic plan to maintain, expand, and lead to core sustainability.

Department/Center Core/Service Center

A Department/Center Core/Service Center primarily provide services to a department or center investigators. The core is supported primarily through department/center funds, with some services to those outside the department/center. The department/center core may also have some support from extramural funds. The core does not frequently/actively bill for services (i.e. limited fee-for-service projects). It is possible the department/center cores provide services outside the institution, but these projects make up a small proportion of submitted work. While they can be an established recharge/service center, it is not a requirement if they do not fulfill the billing requirement (>$10,000 in billings to non-federal programs or sources or >$5,000 to federal programs.) 

Key Factors of a Department/Center Core Facility

  • Provides services only/mostly to department's investigators, rarely across schools.
  • Rarely provides services externally
  • Shared instrumentation/equipment focused with no designated staff support to assist investigators
  • If setup as an official recharge center, cost center at minimum should have Internal Non Fed and Fed accounts
  • No routine support provided by the OAVCR, unless negotiated via Center or other funding

Recharge Center/Service Center

A Recharge/Service Center is established for the primary purpose of providing access to instruments, technologies, goods, services, as well as expert consultation and other services to scientific and clinical investigators on an ongoing basis for a fee with recurring annual charges of at least $10,000 in billings to non-federal programs or sources or $5,000 to federal programs. A service center can range from simple (i.e., single instrument) to highly complex or specialized facilities often focused on research or academic activities providing sales to federally sponsored activities and that do not necessarily market to the entire university.

Key Factors of a Recharge/Service Center

  • The costs of its goods or services can be directly identified with activities in which the goods or services are used
  • Its goods and services benefit research activities and/or instruction
  • It has a predetermined rate for goods and services
  • There is an element of direct overhead included in the rate

All service centers must support or relate to UMMC’s missions of research, education, or health care.