The vice-president of the Academy, prof. Jan Řídký, asked us to create a system which collects offers of instruments and laboratories in one database. The purpose of this step is to effectively manage the capacity of the instruments and direct the offer across the Academy’s workplace to external entities.
The situation at the institutes in this area is diverse and often very different. The administration and management of the use of instrument capacities is also different. In some places, it is lent only to partner institutions or friendly workplaces, in larger institutes there are service departments, which usually offer a comprehensive service. The database of experimental equipment has been built and connected e.g. to the FZÚ website, but we can find offers of instrumentation in various structures at other workplaces. The conditions and method of providing the service are also different.
Transfer portal CAS, resp. The technology database, now in a three-month trial run, is technically ready for the presentation of instruments and laboratories. Existing product sheets can be used for offers. It’s just a matter of which devices to offer this way.
What is not missing is definitely the willingness of the idea of prof. Řídký to realize. The discussion showed that only devices and laboratories that can be perceived as a result of research, or are already part of it, should be offered on the Transfer Portal. Devices that are unique, new, not available on the market, or their use is associated with a new method of measurement, data interpretation and such. That means devices, the access to which can be included in knowledge and technology transfer activities. According to colleagues, the institutes have usable capacities and it would probably not be a problem to offer them through a database. However, colleagues, especially from the workplaces of the first and second scientific fields, agreed, that the initiative to present instruments and laboratories must be issued by the Academy’s management through the director of workplaces, knowing, that managing the portfolio of services will require considerable human effort.
“I consider the launch of the database of instruments and laboratories to be a meritorious idea, it is a huge task and it will not be done in a week, but I appreciate CETTAV’s efforts to face this challenge,” said Jiří Trnka from ÚFCH JH at the end of the discussion.
The next TT Actual will take place on 11 May, and we will publish the topic in time.
