A survey of research quality in core facilities.

Isabelle C Kos-Braun,Claudia Pitzer,Björn Gerlach

doi:10.7554/elife.62212

Abstract

Core facilities are an effective way of making expensive experimental equipment available to a large number of researchers, and are thus well placed to contribute to efforts to promote good research practices. Here we report the results of a survey that asked core facilities in Europe about their approaches to the promotion of good research practices, and about their interactions with users from the first contact to the publication of the results. Based on 253 responses we identified four ways that good research practices could be encouraged: (i) motivating users to follow the advice and procedures for best research practice; (ii) providing clear guidance on data-management practices; (iii) improving communication along the whole research process; and (iv) clearly defining the responsibilities of each party.

Highlights

Concerns about reproducibility in various areas of research have been growing for more than a decade (Eisner, 2018; Ioannidis, 2005; Ioannidis et al, 2014; Prinz et al, 2011)
Our survey was sent to the leaders of 1000 core facilities in different fields of the life sciences in Europe
Full service versus self-service facilities Core facilities can be classified in three distinct groups depending on who performs the experiments at the facility: (a) facility staff; (b) external researchers or users; (c) facility staff and users

Summary

Introduction

Concerns about reproducibility in various areas of research have been growing for more than a decade (Eisner, 2018; Ioannidis, 2005; Ioannidis et al, 2014; Prinz et al, 2011). Possible causes for a lack of reproducibility include selective reporting, the pressure to publish, and the need for better training in the design and analysis of experiments (Baker, 2016; Smaldino and McElreath, 2016), and the scientific community has developed various guidelines to promote rigorous and transparent research practice (Bespalov et al, 2020; Dirnagl et al, 2018; Freedman et al, 2017; Munafoet al., 2017; Nosek et al, 2015; Wilkinson et al, 2016). Core facilities generate a substantial fraction of the scientific data at some institutions, thereby offering protection against bias in the design and analysis of experiments, and supporting transparency, rigor and reproducibility. The most frequent tools used by facilities to improve rigor were quality control and standard operation procedures

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Conclusion