Abstract

Performing good quality, sustainable and ethical research is a complex undertaking. Apart from the scientific component, it entails finding resources, required infrastructure and applicable funding programs to be able to fulfil the scientific brief. It also requires writing operational procedures, incorporating H&S considerations into the day-to-day laboratory protocols and staying on top of new and existing legislation affecting the operations of laboratories and the specific research stream. All of these processes are incredibly time-consuming and keep the researchers from focusing on the actual research.

In most Universities and research centres, one finds offices dedicated to Human Resources, Finance, Facilities, IT and H&S but none that are technically specialised to support laboratories. In an effort to target this issue head-on, a lab support arm was incorporated into the Research Support Services Directorate (RSSD) at the University of Malta. The main mission of this support directorate is to take on the administrative component of research enterprises to enable the researcher to just focus on the science element of research. The lab support arm at RSSD focuses on capacity-building and creating specialised platforms and systems to take care of services that are required by all laboratories across the University. These include:

> Chemical waste management
> Biohazardous waste management
> Radiation protection procedures
> Equipment Inventories
> Equipment search engines
> Invoicing systems for lab services offered to third parties
> SOP management system
> Lab facilities mapping
> Support to commission and decommission equipment
> Lab infrastructural projects and upgrades
> Maintenance of fumehoods and other lab equipment
> Lab-related and technical training
> Assistance in finding applicable funding mechanisms and assistance in submitting proposals
> Scouting and matching of funding programs and European laboratory networks

The added benefit to centralising the above services is that economies of scale can be achieved resulting in substantial savings for the university. Laboratories at the University of Malta have as a result moved away from a fragmented mode of operation resulting in the creation of a stronger network amongst local researchers with RSSD serving as the main focal point.

This presentation will describe in detail how RSSD works from an operational and organisational perspective. RSSD’s working model has proven to be very effective in supporting research laboratories at the University of Malta. The Directorate’s portfolio of services keeps growing as new expertise is created on new research streams. The exploration of Artificial Intelligence as a tool to keep refining our databases and management platforms is an area that the Directorate is also exploring to enhance its research support services.