The Central Core Facilities at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Cologne bundle a top-class research infrastructure that is available to internal and external scientists and cooperation partners. This infrastructure creates synergies by sharing resources, increasing interdisciplinary collaboration and thus strengthening scientific performance at the Cologne site. Our core facilities are equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and are operated by specialised experts. This gives researchers access to state-of-the-art technologies, qualified advice on scientific issues and much more. The range of Central Core Facilities is currently under construction and is being continuously expanded. It is worth checking back regularly. Further information on the services offered, fees and contact persons can be found on the page of the respective Core Facility. General information on the structure and organisation of the Central Core Facilities will be available in the Documents section in the near future. If you have any questions, please contact us at any time!
Detailed information
Who can use the facilities?
The Faculty of Medicine's CCFs are available to internal users, cooperation partners and external users. The individual groups are defined as follows:
Internal users: All employees of the Faculty of Medicine, including visiting scientists and scholarship holders of the University of Cologne Cooperation partners: Non-university research institutions with which a cooperation agreement exists (e.g. MPG, DZNE, DLR); collaborative projects, e.g. within a CRC External users: All other users
How are the Central Core Facilities organised?
The Central Core Facilities are organised by a coordination office, which is responsible for strategic and operational development.
The individual core facilities are managed by a scientific and a technical management team and supported in terms of content and strategy by a focus group.
At regular intervals, the focus group discusses the current key figures of the core facility and possible improvements and makes recommendations to the Dean's Office via the Advisory Board (representation of the Dean's Office, academic heads of the core facilities, CCF coordinator).
Acknowledgments
Mentioning the use of our core facilities in your publications is an important indicator for us and crucial for maintaining funding and further investment. Users are therefore obliged to mention the core facility in a publication.
The type of acknowledgement/consideration depends on the scope of the services provided by the respective core facility. In accordance with the DFG's utilisation guidelines (Chapter 13.1 Obligation to publish), the CCF and the projects funded by the DFG should be included in the acknowledgements in the following form:
"We acknowledge [name person] and the Central Core Facility [name Core Facility] at the Medical Faculty, University of Cologne for the support in acquisition (and analysis) of the data funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer(n) [project number]."
Core Facilities whose equipment was funded by a DFG Major Instrumentation Grant provide the respective project numbers on their website. If a core facility does not provide a project number, the same acknowledgement must still be used, without specifying the project number. If the work carried out by the core facility goes beyond the usual technical support and includes, for example, the development of new methods, experimental design, extensive evaluation or similar, the employees of the core facility involved must be named as co-authors, taking into account good scientific practice.
