Q: As a researcher, have you wished you could walk down to an engineer and ask them to develop a particular software or hardware tool that just fits your experimental design?

Detailed Question -

Some labs are built in a way that the wet lab is right next to the computer lab, which makes it easier for researchers to benefit from tools developed by engineers. What happens to all other labs that are not built in this way? Do they sometimes need a specifically tailored tool that they cannot access? Or do they still cooperate in some form or another with other departments and most often manage to access the resource they want? How would it have helped just walking down to an engineer and asking them to develop a tool that just fits your design?

2 Answers to this question
Answer:

Hi Sophie – Welcome to the forum! And straight up, that’s a very interesting question. In fact, as we started reading it, we almost thought it was a spec question, but eventually realized that while it’s a ‘wish-list’ question, it’s a very valid one at that. :-)

We trust one of the researchers here will be able to respond to your query. Until then, to cast an even wider net, you may also decide to pop this query in Researcher Voice, our group on Facebook for researchers, academics, and scholars from across the world, who are always ready to pitch in with thoughts and inputs on posers such as these.

In this very forum, as you mentioned experimental design, you may find it worthwhile to go through this query on the subject, answered by a senior journal editor.

Here’s hoping your wish, or at least, the query is soon fulfilled!

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Answer:

Hello again, Sophie! We see you did post your query in Researcher Voice. That's great. As this query touches upon networking and collaboration, from this site itself, here are a couple of relevant resources in the area:

Happy reading - and collaborating!

 

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