Research Core Facilities Program invests $2.1 million in designated facilities

The Research Core Facilities Program (RCFP), launched in 2015 by the Office of Research, is pleased to announce the recipients of $2.1 million in new funding to help strengthen the research infrastructure at UC Davis.

In its first year of operation, the RCFP developed the Campus Research Core Facilities Enhancement Funding Program to make strategic investments in shared research facilities. The goal of this program was to make funding available to support upgrades to instrumentation and the development of new research services to serve faculty, staff and students across the campus.

A request for proposals was issued in April 2016 to the 17 facilities that were recently designated as Campus Research Core Facilities (CRCF).

The following 11 proposals were approved for funding:

  1. Short Term, High Impact Salary Support to Bring Two Fully-Funded, Game-Changing Microscopes Online, Light Microscopy Imaging Facility
  2. Development and Implementation of Ultra-Long-Read Sequencing Protocols, DNA Technologies Core
  3. Acquisition of an LC-Triple Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer for Open-Access Quantitative Analysis, Campus Mass Spectrometry Facility
  4. Purchase of a New Cryoplatform for an Existing 600 MHz Nuclear Magnetic Resonance system, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facility
  5. Request for Transmission Electron Microscope, BioEM Facility
  6. Image Analysis Core for CMGI, Center for Molecular and Genomic Imaging
  7. Applications Scientist to support new NIH Funded Orbitrap Fusion Mass Spectrometer, Proteomics Core
  8. Operational Support for the Flow Cytometry Shared Resource, Flow Cytometry Shared Resource
  9. Enhancing Keck Spectral Imaging Facility through Equipment Upgrade, Keck Spectral Imaging Facility
  10. Establishing a UC Davis community for stable isotope tracer and cellular metabolism studies, Metabolomics Core
  11. Acquisition of a Triple Quadropole ICP-MS for Advanced Research in the UC Davis Interdisciplinary Center for Plasma Mass Spectrometry, Interdisciplinary Center for Plasma Mass Spectrometry

A competitive review process was designed in close collaboration with the Research Core Advisory Council and the Academic Senate.  Reviews of each proposal were conducted by at least three individual faculty, followed by a ranking of all proposals received during a panel discussion.  Review criteria included a clear justification of how the proposed investment would strategically improve research infrastructure, accessibility and quality of service. In addition, facilities were required to demonstrate financial need for the requested resources.

The RCFP is now moving into its second full year of operations. The program anticipates a second call of applications for designating shared resource facilities that meet the established criteria. Another round of grants is also anticipated during the next fiscal year to meet the large demand for consolidated, high-quality research services for both on and off-campus users.

“It is tremendously gratifying to provide this first round of awards to our research core facilities that serve the largest number of faculty, staff and students across campus.  These awards will significantly improve faculty competitiveness for extramural funding and will provide new opportunities for student training on state-of-the-art instrumentation,” said Harris Lewin, Vice Chancellor for Research. “My congratulations and thanks to Director van Benthem, faculty and staff who worked so carefully and collaboratively to implement the strategic vision of this program.”

For further information, please contact Professor Klaus van Benthem, Director, or Julie Auger, Associate Director, Research Core Facilities Program.