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Kimberly A. Huey |
In the last Mentoring Forum,
you were given important advice on choosing the techniques you plan to
implement in your new laboratory, as well as the personnel to perform the
experiments. While these choices provided you with many new challenges, you
now face the challenge of developing a budget to fund your research dreams
and aspirations. Fortunately, as a new faculty member, you will likely have
received a start-up package that you negotiated to cover the majority of
expenditures associated with the establishment of a successful laboratory.
As the name implies, a start-up package should allow you to “hit the ground
running” and begin collecting meaningful data to include in subsequent grant
submissions. The information you used to negotiate your start-up package
will provide the basics of your initial budget. There are three major
components within a lab budget: 1) personnel (salary, benefits, meeting
travel/registration); 2) major equipment, and 3) supplies/consumables.
Personnel Costs
Personnel can constitute a large majority of your budget once you have
purchased the major and/or expensive equipment necessary to conduct your
research. This is especially true as you move forward in your career and
your lab continues to grow in size. However, as a new investigator, your
hiring decisions will determine how much of your budget is allocated for
personnel. As discussed in the last Mentoring Forum, a new investigator has
the opportunity to make the critical hires to begin a successful career, and
these hires will likely fall into one of three categories: 1) full or
part-time laboratory technicians; 2) postdoctoral fellows; and 3) graduate
or undergraduate students. You also likely will have the opportunity to have
undergraduates working in your laboratory, but in most cases they will work
for the research experience or course credit. Some—but certainly not
all—universities will include the salary for a technician in your start-up
package. If this is the case, having a competent technician as you begin
your research career can be very important in your future successes. First,
a technician can work in the lab full time without the demands of teaching
or service and may be able to provide technical expertise in an area that is
new to you. In addition, a technician can help train graduate and
undergraduate students. A good technician will also provide your lab with
some continuity, as postdoctoral fellows and graduate students may be in
your lab only for a few years. However, a full-time technician can consume a
large portion of your initial budget, whereas postdoctoral fellows or
graduate students can often be funded from outside sources. A good postdoc
can greatly improve your research productivity, as they are usually
well-trained and are motivated to be productive so they can be competitive
for a faculty position in several years. Similar to a technician, a postdoc
can also help you train graduate and undergraduate students. Ideally, you
would be able to find a postdoc who has a fellowship from institutes such as
NIH or American Heart Association. Depending on the source of the
fellowship, it will often cover the salary, benefits, and travel for the
postdoc. In a faculty position, you will also be expected to mentor graduate
students, and they may comprise the largest portion of your personnel. There
are numerous ways to fund graduate students, such as pre-doctoral grants,
teaching assistantships, and/or research assistantships. Pre-doctoral grants
and/or teaching assistantships would not contribute to your budgetary
planning, whereas research assistantships are generally funded by your
start-up and/or grants. Ideally, you would like to find postdocs or graduate
students that have funding for at least one year, thereby giving you time to
obtain grant funding to support them further in your laboratory.
Major Equipment
Before you begin purchasing the major equipment for your laboratory, compile
a list of equipment and supplies and divide it into resources that are
expensive and resources that are essential to successful research. This will
enable you to categorize your budget and thus utilize your funds in the most
effective manner. For example, required equipment and supplies could include
large/heavy equipment (refrigerators, hoods, lab shakers, centrifuges),
microscopy, cell/molecular biology equipment (PCR machines, plate readers),
computing and printing, general lab equipment (pipettors, microfuges,
vortex), chemicals and reagents, and reference books.
With respect to major equipment, your first step is to learn about core
and/or shared facilities within your institution. Most major research
universities have core facilities that often include expensive equipment
that is generally not within the budget of an individual investigator. For
example, some universities have institutes that maintain state-of-the-art
imaging equipment, such as electron and atomic force microscopes and
functional MRIs. Core or shared facilities would also include equipment that
you would not use on a regular basis. Consequently, it is not in your best
interest to budget a significant amount of money on such equipment.
After determining the equipment that you definitely need to purchase for
your independent laboratory, the first step is to receive quotes from
several companies, especially when you do not need to purchase a specific
model or brand. Many of the major scientific supply companies offer
specialized new lab start-up programs that provide discounts on all types of
equipment and lab consumables (e.g., such as Thermo Fisher and VWR; check
your other university suppliers for other similar offers). It is also
important to develop a good working relationship with the local sales
representatives for the companies with which you will be conducting the
majority of your business. Second, you should also ask colleagues if they
have any spare equipment that they are no longer using and would be willing
to donate to your laboratory. Oftentimes, well-funded, senior faculty will
be happy to donate older equipment when they update to the newer models. In
most cases this equipment works great and can save your budget thousands of
dollars. It may also be helpful to develop relationships with investigators
with similar research interests/techniques who have established
laboratories. In these cases, you may be able to share certain equipment or
reagents. Independent of budget issues, it is always important to begin
developing collaborations within your department or university.
Another non-traditional source of major equipment is companies that
specialize in used laboratory equipment (e.g., eBay). You can “Google” the
equipment you are interested in purchasing and often end up with an array of
choices. Local appliance or big box stores are excellent sources for
purchasing basic appliances, lab furniture, tools, cleaning supplies, carts,
etc. While these items can be purchased from lab supply companies, the
prices are significantly higher for the same item. Many universities also
have arrangements with local appliance dealers to supply basic
refrigerators, freezers, and microwaves.
An additional consideration if you purchase new equipment is whether to buy
a service contract. A service contract can include many services beyond a
general warranty, such as software updates, calibration, certification,
preventative maintenance, priority service, and/or additional discounts on
upgrades. Service contracts can be costly, and you can either discuss
options with colleagues or make your own informed decision. Several reasons
why you may chose to purchase a service contract could include reduced
hassles if your equipment breaks, faster/priority repairs and a predictable
expense in your budget. If a piece of equipment is critical to your work,
you use it frequently, and major repairs are very expensive, a service
contract may be worthwhile. In terms of budget, you will know exactly what
you are going to pay in advance and will not be blindsided with a major
“surprise” expense. On the other hand, you may end up paying for services
that you never use and therefore paid for “peace of mind,” which would
extend beyond the typical one year warranty.
Supplies/Consumables
Once you have outfitted your new lab with all the appropriate major
equipment, the majority of your budget will likely be spend on personnel
costs. However, the daily costs of running the lab must also be considered
in your laboratory budget. While the daily costs will vary depending on the
number of people in your lab, the types of assays you perform, etc., a
general rule is that you can plan on spending ~$1,000/month on pipette tips,
tubes, glassware, cell culture supplies, gloves, etc. Additional consumable
supplies, such as antibodies, enzymes, Elisa kits, and PCR kits, will add to
these costs; however, items like antibodies or enzymes—if correctly stored
and handled—can last for months to years. After tracking your spending over
a representative period of time, you will be able to get a good estimate of
how much to budget for supplies and consumables over months or years.
Staying within Budget/Tracking Spending
Following the development of an initial budget to run your laboratory,
it is important to track your spending to assure that you are working within
the parameters of your budget. This can be accomplished utilizing
spreadsheet or database programs, such as Microsoft Excel or Access. A
database program, such as Access, can be particularly helpful as you can
establish a database of your money sources (start-up, grants, etc),
suppliers, and a record of all your purchase orders. This can also save time
with regard to purchasing supplies that you buy on a regular basis. For
example, you can have a standing purchase order for pipette tips and
microfuge tubes that you would just print out and give to the person in
charge of ordering when you needed additional supplies. In addition, you
could also modify your budget to keep it current as well as track
expenditures with programs such as Quicken or Quickbooks.
Conclusions
While developing and implementing a budget for your new laboratory may be as
fun as balancing your checkbook, it is indispensable to initiating a
successful career. Making the most of your start-up budget, in part, can be
instrumental in obtaining future grant support. Specifically, budgeting for
enough personnel and the necessary equipment is the only way you will be
able to generate preliminary data for your subsequent grant applications.
Unfortunately, budgeting and accounting strategies are generally not part of
your training as a graduate student or postdoc, and thus you must take the
initiative to learn from mentors and/or colleagues the best budgeting
strategies. Also remember that successful budgeting continues throughout
your career, as all granting agencies expect you to present an accurate and
well-documented budget for spending the money you obtain from your
successful grant applications.
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