The University has launched a website to promote its equipment and facility sharing project, having recouped over £1m in costs from the initiative last year.
The website identifies two separate databases where research staff can advertise their resources – an internal service for sharing between departments and with a number of partner universities who make up the Science and Engineering South Consortium, and a national service for sharing with universities across the country.
Dr Christopher Wilkinson, Equipment Sharing Project Manager, hopes the site will encourage more researchers to use the databases, which provide many benefits to the University.
He said: "Last year Cambridge departments recouped £300,000 in equipment costs from sharing with each other and more than £800,000 from sharing with external partners. The services also provide researchers with access to a wider pool of equipment and are useful for testing potential purchases or planning future collaborative projects.”
Dr Katherine Stott, Facility Manager in the Department of Biochemistry, regularly uses the databases. She added: "In an increasingly competitive environment, funding agencies look much more favourably on paying for equipment when it will be shared. We also find that sharing is the only way to recover running costs so we can continue using and maintaining equipment post-warranty when the expensive service contracts kick in."
The equipment sharing website can be accessed here and staff can access the internal database using this link (a Raven login is required). For further information about the equipment and facilities sharing project contact Dr Wilkinson at christopher.r.wilkinson@admin.cam.ac.uk.