Following its launch in February 2026, the Research Platforms and Facilities: Connecting the People Who Drive Innovation and Make Research Possible program has now reached an important milestone.
Over the past months, the project has brought together research facility managers and key stakeholders from across UCL through a series of collaborative workshops and a final hybrid Insights Event held on 16 June 2026 at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre.
Bringing the community together
Three online workshops provided a dedicated space for facility managers to share experiences, highlight common challenges, and identify opportunities to strengthen collaboration across UCL’s diverse portfolio of research platforms and facilities.
The strong engagement demonstrated the value of creating a more connected community, with participants contributing insights on topics including operational and financial sustainability, visibility of facilities, resourcing, and strategic alignment across departments.
Insights Event: sharing outcomes and shaping the future
The Insights Event brought together facility managers, senior leadership, and representatives from key professional services to reflect on the outcomes of the initiative and consider its future direction.
The programme combined presentations of workshop findings with short talks, institutional updates, and interactive Q&A sessions, creating a platform for dialogue across different areas of the university. Contributors included Mike Brown (Director for Research and Technology Platforms), Professor Stephanie Schorge (Pro-Vice-Provost, Research Platforms & Infrastructure), and Lee Stanyer (Research Manager), who shared updates on the rollout of the Infinity X equipment booking system at UCL. Isabel Goncalves Cattuzzo (Technical Skills Development Hub Manager and co-Chair of the Technical Managers Group (TMG)), also highlighted the importance of the emerging Research Facility Managers Network as part of the TMG’s broader ecosystem of special interest groups and welcomed the network under the TMG umbrella, recognising its potential to strengthen connections across the technical and research infrastructure community.
A growing Research Facility Managers Network
A central outcome of the project is the growing momentum behind establishing a UCL Research Facility Managers Network.
The network aims to:
- Connect facility managers across faculties and disciplines
- Enable knowledge sharing and peer support
- Increase visibility of research platforms and their impact
- Strengthen engagement with institutional strategy and decision-making
- Support the long-term sustainability of facilities
Join the community
As the project moves into its next phase, facility managers are encouraged to join the new Teams community space.
This platform will serve as a hub for ongoing conversations, sharing resources, and building connections across UCL.
By joining the network, you will be contributing to a collaborative effort to shape the future of research facilities at UCL, ensuring that the people and infrastructure that enable world-leading research are better connected, supported, and recognised.
Project leads
The initiative is guided by a cross faculty working group that reflects the breadth of UCL’s facilities landscape:
- Giovanna Vinti, Head of Technical Services, Faculty of Life Sciences
- Nadine Simons Weidenmaier, Research Facilities Coordinator, Life and Medical Sciences
- Jemima Burden, Head of Electron Microscopy, Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology
- Daria Gavriouchkina, Single Cell and Spatial Omics Platform Manager, UKDRI
- Jamie Gould, X ray Diffraction Facility Manager, Department of Chemistry
- Fidel Peacock, Senior Laboratory Manager, Division of Surgery and Interventional Sciences
- Reshma Tilwani, Technical Manager, People and Nature Labs, Division of Biosciences
- Rachel Williams, Head of Sequencing, UCL Genomics, UCL Institute of Child Health
