[00:00:00] Aaron Benz: Welcome to another Bow Tie Tuesday. Today I am pleased, uh, to be joined by Barbara Manley-Smith, who's a Director of Research Facilities at Augusta University, where we get to learn how they have 800,000 square feet, where, check this out, 97% is occupied and used.
And a topic today where indirect cost caps are at the front of everybody's mind. In, in research space, uh, I caught a presentation by Barbara at Tradeline that I thought was just so impressive for how they've been able to attack, understand their research space, create better policies, um, and ultimately use it better when this is more under pressure than ever.
So, Barbara, welcome to Bow Tie Tuesday. It's so, uh, it's such a pleasure to have you.
[00:00:44] Barbara Manley-Smith: Thank you. Good to be here.
[00:00:46] Aaron Benz: So I, I'd love for you maybe just to give a little history of kind of you joining Augusta University that maybe the problems that you all identified and then how you worked yourself towards this 97% occupied rate in [00:01:00] your labs.
'cause I'm sure it wasn't just a straight, a straight road to get there and there were lots of curves along the way.
[00:01:06] Barbara Manley-Smith: Yeah, it was it was not easy at all, but I was hired in this role about four years ago. It was a new role. It was the organization just saw that there was a need for this to separate regular facilities and research facilities and to manage our space and, um, better.
We did have a space management system, but it didn't have a research component really to it. It was just very basic. So one of the things when I started was to just gather the data, right? We didn't have the data at the room level that we needed. So we developed a research module to, at the room level measure dollars per square feet for PIs and occupancy and external funding and alternate funding.
So we get a better look at where our utilization was through the lab space, things like that. We also had a policy in place that hadn't been looked at or [00:02:00] reviewed or revised for about five years. So we, we looked at that and ended up using the space, same space against the metrics that we had in that policy.
But we, a little bit more data on behind to to compare it to we some once. Kind of the next step was enforcing that and changing the policies and changing committees and how we look at space and how we assign space.
[00:02:23] Aaron Benz: So tell me a little bit about, kind of go, going about that, right?
So you recognize that there were some holes, I guess in your inventory fundamentally, and you know, what was actually being used or there was maybe a disconnect between is, is a researcher actually, do they have dollars that are using that versus not? Tell me about navigating even some of those conversations or like how were you able to collect this data or, or what was like the, um
the holes in the data that you really needed to, to more effectively manage that research space?
[00:02:52] Barbara Manley-Smith: Well, there was a couple of different components. First the space was managed by the department chairs or the center of institute directors. So they kind of [00:03:00] managed their space within their own footprint.
So if they have someone leave or some of those funding and someone gain funding, they kind of manage that themselves. They never really gave up their space. If they didn't have adequate funding or they didn't even have adequate staff so faculty leave. So that was kind of the first hole that we didn't have an overall picture.
So we've had big picture and then start the next phase of implementation and looking at it. And holistically
[00:03:32] Aaron Benz: Now a big you know, issue that always arises with research space is, you know, maybe I had money, but now I'm waiting on that next grant to come through, so I don't want to give up my lab.
How did you figure out what's, what's the right balance of, can you maintain something for a little bit versus when do we try to reallocate, maybe take me through that.
[00:03:51] Barbara Manley-Smith: So, one of the things that we did was we changed the, um, overall management of this space from the department level to the [00:04:00] research administration, VP of research.
That made, once the space was vacant, it came back into a research vacant allocation, so we could been allocated out better. We tried the other thing we did is we put these space metrics that had always been there. We started enforcing that a little bit better. So that was a big culture change, and that was probably the hardest part of the whole process.
We, once we got that established, we, one of our rules is we don't take a people out of space. Even if we change their space metrics, space model or space square feet, we never reduce them to zero.
No matter how long they have not had funding. It, there's a lot of different ways we do that. One of 'em is just to reduce their space a little, to our, whatever the need is. The other thing would be to see who they collaborate with and, and another person's unfunded that has similar research and combine them into the same aspects.
We combine them.
[00:04:58] Aaron Benz: Okay.
[00:04:58] Barbara Manley-Smith: So only if there's a [00:05:00] need. And I say you have 3% of vacant space, but that 3% of vacant space, it was an all in one area with one beautiful lab and all of the labs full space is connected to it, right?
Even though you have some vacant space, you certainly don't have recruitable space. You'll have three percent stuff. We were very careful on how we do that to continue to respect the researchers', vision and their research, but also try to be a better steward in the space.
[00:05:29] Aaron Benz: Interesting. So let's say my, uh, my funding dried up. I'm still working on stuff. Maybe I get a little reduction, but I'm not gonna lose all of my space. But basically it's kind of also motivating me to go get that research to either keep my space or get more space or et cetera, but without totally, let's say, destroying my research efforts.
Is that the, is that the idea? Correct.
[00:05:53] Barbara Manley-Smith: And another step that we took a couple years into the process was we developed a space density report. [00:06:00] And we do that annually where we give all of the information to the department chairs for their department. It's every PI in their department and the, um, extramural sponsored dollars associated with that PI at the room level based on their square feet and their dollars.
And then anybody that's under our space, we ask the department chair to work with that researcher and give us, make sure they give us the whole picture. So they give us all their alternate funding, their extramural funding, their intramural funding, what their other scholarly activities are. Right.
You know, they're writing, they're doing publications they're teaching their, they have a patent, they're working on anything that they want. Do that. And so we have a whole picture and then we ask, then we kind of work with the department chair to say, how are you as
a department chair gonna help this researcher g et back to what they need to do to increase their, their funding and you know, things like that. And we also ask the department chair, do you feel like this space is [00:07:00] adequate for this research? So they haven't been funded in three years, two years, four years, and they have X amount of space. Is, in your opinion, after reviewing all of this data, do you feel it's accurate?
You feel less space, more space, shared space?
[00:07:17] Aaron Benz: So it's really, you know, hey, basically what's any available metric that can help give us a better idea of the real ROI of this space, right? Not just research dollars, but any activity to paint the most objective view of everything that, that you're doing that we could consider valuable, and then using the department chairs as I, I guess your qualitative feedback like, Hey, do you think this is right based on the metrics that are here for these decisions?
[00:07:45] Barbara Manley-Smith: Right. And also I think. It helps to, the, most of our department chairs are researchers and faculty as well, right? So they're, they have a lot on their plate. It gives them an opportunity once a year to sit down and look at the big picture. And, um, and they know, you know, they [00:08:00] know the funding and they know that they're in this lab over here and they have that additional space.
They're very aware of that. But to give them all the data in one place and have them review it at least once a year I think has been built.
[00:08:13] Aaron Benz: Very cool. So tell me, I mean, obviously a lot of these policy changes are and even the implementation of this, I'm sure there was different pushback along the way and kind of, you know, large conversations that you'll, that you had to have.
What do you think kind of empowered you to go and have these, did you have the right kind of stakeholders on the university side that were backing this effort? Was it kind of the head of research or, or how, how did you help? What helps you get through maybe some of these harder conversations, ultimately to an end that your stakeholders, I, I don't know if everybody's happy with the end result, but it seems like, you know, it's, it's working.
[00:08:49] Barbara Manley-Smith: So one of the first things that happened was we, you know, we're, they're almost at capacity. And so we went to our university systems and said, we would like a new research space. [00:09:00] They said, well, how are you utilizing the space?
We couldn't answer the question, but everybody wants new research space. So that's how we got all our stakeholders involved is, um, telling them that this was the work we had to do to present to our university to get more
[00:09:15] Aaron Benz: space,
[00:09:15] Barbara Manley-Smith: to get more space. And so, but it was still very painful. It was still very long. We did some pretty big communication.
We did get our president on board to, for me to put directly to the researchers that we had different opportunities. We had to go through our faculty senate committee to get any of those policies and those procedures in place. They, it just took a lot of communication and a lot of stakeholder involvement.
But the, I think the push or the thing that helped push it to the end was the sight and the idea of the new space.
[00:09:50] Aaron Benz: So really forming that. I don't know that inclu inclusive vision, right? Hey, if we want to get more space, we have to have a better case that demands we can get more research space to do [00:10:00] X, Y, Z in the future.
Here's what we need to get there. How do we get on board?
[00:10:05] Barbara Manley-Smith: Not just more research space, but better space. Right. A better space. 'cause we have nine old buildings, 1970 buildings that are, the infrastructure's not built for the heat, low capacity that you have these days. Sure. All instrumentation, things like that.
[00:10:20] Aaron Benz: Very cool. Well, I got two, I got two final questions for you. One, if you think about the future, what are you excited about or thinking about how you even operate these facilities better in the future? Um, or, things you're looking forward to or different experiments you all are thinking about anything like that.
[00:10:38] Barbara Manley-Smith: So, after all this work, I think the most exciting thing was we did get the approval from the research building.
[00:10:44] Aaron Benz: All right. So it worked. State
[00:10:45] Barbara Manley-Smith: funding? Yeah, it worked, it worked for us. We did get state funding, um, where also, you know. We have to raise our own funding as well, but we're we just finished our finishing the programming phase and the design phase.
So not only did I get to take this, re [00:11:00] this project and get all this data and get all this information to get that, but now we are using that same information to develop and design this new building, but try to make it work better for us not just as a building. But the infrastructure of the building, the connections in the building, collaboration with how many labs versus support spaces versus administrative spaces and all of that data that project kind of builds into the next project to make this open best need for the future, you know?
Right. We built and already be outdated.
[00:11:36] Aaron Benz: Well, that's fantastic. Always great to hear when the plan works out, right? Right. Hey, we did this, we told you we could do this. Then we'll get more, you know, more, more funding, more space, better space in the future, and that seems to be what's happening. Fi final question for you.
'Cause again, I, I love your all story and, and what you all have done. If you were gonna give advice to other institutions that you know, are looking at the research space or, [00:12:00] or other space like a prescription, right? Like, Hey, just go do this. Take me at my word. This is gonna work out. What's like two or three things that, that you would tell them to, uh, to go do or to focus on or to leverage or whatever it might be?
[00:12:17] Barbara Manley-Smith: So I have, i've met a lot of people when I've spoken at different conferences and everybody kind of has this same, these questions. And so to answer the questions that I've heard the most, the first thing you have to do is you have to have your foundation. You have to have your data, and you have to have, uh, the information that you need and the ability to interface all the as systems to get that data at any given moment to get any report that anybody else like, so you have to have that data foundation.
So if you haven't done that, that is definitely the first step. The second step is to engage your stakeholders as early as you can, because those are the people that are gonna be your champions to move everything forward. And then I think the third step is you have to just do it like everybody says to me, [00:13:00] but if I do that policy and we implement a space, it's gonna be so bad.
They're just gonna all be upset. And, and what I say to that is, yes they will. And it is tough. But, um, we just have to do it every, we just have to take that first step, so everybody's willing to do the data and everybody's willing to engage the stakeholders. But no, the majority of the people I talk to are not willing to put that space metric in place.
They start to change the, that's the hardest part.
[00:13:29] Aaron Benz: Yeah.
[00:13:30] Barbara Manley-Smith: And probably the third step in the three step process that. Everybody can get to that part and then they seem to stop,
[00:13:37] Aaron Benz: so, so get the data, build a coalition, and then be fearless. Right. Actually act on it and may Okay. Maybe one more question because I'm, I, well, I'm at least curious, how long do you think it took you to really gather even just that base foundation data layer to be able to start building, to even build that coalition and then start placing some of these [00:14:00] metrics?
[00:14:01] Barbara Manley-Smith: So it was easy to do the re the easiest part was the database, right? It took us probably 12 months, but it was easy. Yeah. We had the data, we just had to have the, IT department commit the data, write the code and things like that. So it was long, but it was easy. The second part was engage with the stakeholders. That was that, that didn't take as long once we started giving them the data, but the hardest part was changing the culture.
It took me 19 months to change that policy. Wow. Because we changed it and it would go through all the steps and had to go through to, it was a, it's an official Augusta university policy has to make through several layers to get it through. And every, all those different layers came back with, their thoughts of their revisions based on their, um.
Their knowledge and their interest and not always the global interests. Right. So that was the hardest part, was actually changing the policy. That was even harder than enforcing that.
[00:14:58] Aaron Benz: How interesting. So [00:15:00] holistically something like two to three years from beginning, starting collecting data to how do we have an approved policy that we're acting on?
Is that about right?
[00:15:10] Barbara Manley-Smith: And I would say I started in April of 21 with this being my first task. The database being my first task and I would say if culture wasn't changed. And, and by culture change, I don't mean everyone is completely off of our 100%, but under they understand that you know the goals and they understand the policy and they understand the organizational structure of how, how the metrics have been in place and enforced
[00:15:41] Aaron Benz: awesome. Well, I love it. Build. Build your data foundation. Get a coalition. Be fearless.
[00:15:48] Barbara Manley-Smith: Yes, absolutely. Barbara. That's my suggestion.
[00:15:51] Aaron Benz: Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. I love your all story. Love what you're all doing at Augusta University and so happy that you could join me on this Bow Tie Tuesday.
[00:15:59] Barbara Manley-Smith: Thank you [00:16:00] for having me.