New Policy for Institutional Core Labs

The Office of the Vice President for Research supports and oversees the operations of 9 Institutional Core Laboratories (Core Labs), which provide affordable access to specialized technologies and technical expertise for our research community. The overarching goal of the Core Labs is to increase the scholarly productivity of the University’s scientists including high-quality publications, grant funding, and invention disclosures. Each Core Lab is directed by a highly qualified faculty member, assisted by expert technical staff. All the Institutional Core Labs are supported administratively by the Director of Institutional Core Laboratories, Dr. Ramiro Ramirez-Solis.

Each Core Lab has an advisory Scientific Core Committee (SCC) which is composed of faculty with a high degree of expertise on, and/or whose teams use the technology substantially. This committee provides advice on novel or obsolete technologies, as well as on scientific, operational, financial, and regulatory aspects of the lab. In addition to the SCCs, a single high-level Institutional Core Committee (ICC) composed by senior leaders from the University’s schools, main research centers, scientific base, financial, administrative and regulatory units, provides advice to the Vice President for Research to ensure the Core Labs optimize their service to the University’s scientists. The ICC meets semi-annually, and has recently approved the Institutional Core Laboratories Policy. This document will serve as the basis to define Core Lab services and provide a transparent process to apply for, or if necessary, discontinue the Institutional Core Lab status. The Policy became effective on September 1, 2018.

The Core Labs are part of the UT System Core Sharing Network. To facilitate this integration, and to manage the core services “from request to billing/invoicing”, all Core Labs use the iLabs Operations Software. Access to the services of our core labs can be obtained by creating an account here. Both of these web pages also allow searching for services provided by other network members. One of the advantages that the network offers to all UT System researchers is the access to core lab services located at different campuses for the same fee rates paid by their internal users. If interested in more information, please email ramirezsolis@uthscsa.edu.