Why it is important

Research facilities provide the research community with state-of-the-art instrumentation and expertise, significantly impacting on the quality of the resultant research output. Acknowledgement represents an important and visible measure of the impact of our research facilities and enables us to secure support and essential funding.

Information to include in acknowledgements

All publications resulting from the use of instruments within our research facilities should acknowledge them:

The authors gratefully acknowledge the research facilities at the University of Bath (doi.org/10.15125/mx6j-3r54) for technical support and assistance in this work.

Additionally, the facility should be cited in the reference list using this DOI:

University of Bath research facilities, DOI: 10.15125/mx6j-3r54

Help from a specific member of the research facilities

Where users have had significant help from a particular member of the facility staff, or where the facility staff have generated additional data personally, this staff member should be acknowledged by name:

The authors thank [insert name] of the research facilities at the University of Bath (doi.org/10.15125/mx6j-3r54) for their technical support and guidance in this work.

Contributions that merit co-authorship

If Instrument Specialists from our research facilities contribute more than just routine techniques, they should be co-authors of papers that use this data. This applies to the development or adaptation of protocols to suit specific samples or materials, (re)design of experiments, and extensive data analysis and interpretation.

Simple acquisitions of raw data or routine sample preparations alone would not normally merit co-authorship but should still be acknowledged as written above.