Career Spotlight: Scientific Core Facility Employee

Approximately one hundred people work in the 19 scientific core facilities at CRCHUM. Most research centres have set up such facilities, so it is a job sector that's worth looking into and that could interest those who are thinking about their career choices.

Here's a brief overview of the work that's involved.

The role of the scientific core facilities is to support the research being done by offering expertise and infrastructure that would otherwise be unattainable or inaccessible. This support can range from providing complex or expensive technologies to rare technical expertise, and often involves both!

Technical tasks are therefore integral to this role. For several core facilities, technical tasks are manual in nature, involving smocks and pipettes, but they can also involve bioinformatics like ATiM and CITADEL, or still other tasks. The technical aspect of the job also extends to equipment maintenance, or at least ensuring that everything is functioning properly.

From scientific expertise to client services

On top of technical expertise, scientific expertise is also needed. Working for a core facility, one must be a quick study in user and client projects in order to be able to properly guide them and to identify potential issues. The employee must also be able to interpret results and have a solid understanding of the limits of certain methods and their alternatives.

Customer service is a major component of the work at a core facility.

One must be able to communicate with users in order to offer quality service and to ensure that the results and the instruments are used to their full potential. This role requires good listening skills in order to understand the (often widely varying) projects and good communication skills to explain the technologies, manipulations and results.

Because of our affiliation with the university, the core facilities play a significant role in training users, from students to postdoctoral fellows. This role is truly indispensable when it comes to the use of self-service equipment.

Managing micro-businesses

The core facilities could be considered small service businesses working as part of the Research Centre. They are responsible for developing a vision, managing the ensemble of equipment and creating and following a budget.

In addition to these administrative duties, this role can also include duties relating to personnel management.

While several core facilities consist of a sole employee who manages everything, others, like the animal facility, have an impressive team.

The terms of employment, including salary and schedule, vary significantly from position to position. It would be difficult to summarize these terms here.

We may write a more detailed notice in a subsequent publication.

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Author: Julien Lamontagne, Core Facilities' Echo committee