Core Facility Benchmarking Study, June 2011

iLab Solutions conducted the first annual Core Facility Benchmarking Study in the first quarter of 2011. The study was based on a survey of individuals who directly oversee cores, service centers, and recharge centers at hospitals, universities, and independent research institutions. The goals of this study were to provide an understanding of core facility management and operations practices, as well as trends in core growth and utilization.

In total, 246 individual core managers and directors from over 100 institutions, representing more than 30 different core types, responded to the survey. Their responses paint a picture of health of cores in the scientific research community. This study shows that business growth and utilization rates increased from 2009 to 2010 (60% of cores with growing volume, 7% experiencing declines). The survey also reveals a number of strong patterns in core operations:

• Most cores charge for services (93% of cores);
• Chargeback income provides the most important revenue stream (49% of revenues);
• Core managers tend to spend the largest portion of their time directly providing services to their customers (56 hours per month);
• Labor constitutes the largest area of expense (50% of expenses);
• Most cores still rely on basic spreadsheets (e.g., Excel) to manage administrative tasks;
• The most common means of staying at the forefront of the core’s scientific interest are through word-of-mouth and conference attendance;
• Social media have made only limited inroads in the core community; and
• Most cores do not track the publications which result from their services.

The following pages provide an analysis of the data collected along with some commentary to help make sense of the individual responses to the survey.

Download the full report below.