New service center core facilities must be created using a standardized approach to business planning, rate development, operations, compliance and approval. This section will provide the processes, templates and guides you need when developing a new core. This information is also useful for developing a departmental or limited access core facility but are intended for service center core facilities who anticipate generating charges greater than $100,000 per year.

Starting a New Core Facility

Are you interested in starting a service center core facility? If so, please consider the following questions. Do you:

• Provide goods or services on a recurring basis to internal users at Johns Hopkins?
• Want to recover the cost of providing the good or service through charges to users?
• Anticipate the total charges will exceed $100,000 per year?
• Have personnel that add value in providing the good or service?

If you answered yes to the questions above, then you fit the criteria for a service center and must follow the requirements for operating as a service center. For the purposes of this website, we will use the term “service center,” but it may also be known as a core facility. Service centers are centralized, shared research resources that provide access to instruments, technologies, services, expert consultation, and other services to scientific and clinical investigators. The typical core facility is a discrete unit within an institution that may have dedicated personnel, equipment and space for operations. In general, core facilities recover their cost, or a portion of their cost, of providing service in the form of user fees that are charged to an investigator’s funds, often to National Institutes of Health or other federal grants.