Optimizing Research Visibility: The Role of Investigators and Shared (Core) Research Resources in Publications Using RRIDs

ABSTRACT

Shared Research Resources (SRRs), also known as core facilities or research cores, play a pivotal role in advancing scientific discovery by providing specialized equipment, services, and expert guidance. SRRs provide integral contributions to research and have an active role in upholding, rigor, reproducibility, and adherence to FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse), but are frequently underacknowledged in scientific publications. This paper underscores the importance of formally recognizing SRRs in research outputs, both to enhance transparency and to support institutional efforts in securing funding, recruiting faculty, and sustaining infrastructure. Drawing on guidelines from the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities, we explore the challenges to widespread SRR acknowledgment and propose actionable strategies for researchers and SRR staff to ensure proper credit is given. Acknowledgment not only validates the intellectual and technical contributions of SRRs, ranging from experimental design to data interpretation, but also serves as a critical metric for career advancement within the SRR sector. By fostering a culture of recognition, the research community can better uphold standards of excellence and collaboration.

INTRODUCTION

Acknowledging a shared research resource (SRR) and the equipment, services, and expertise provided to support a researcher’s outcomes is essential for optimizing the visibility of research rigor and reproducibility. In addition, acknowledgment demonstrates the importance and value SRRs have in supporting research and returns on investment for organizations.¹ SRRs help to enable research by supporting studies with expert advice, consultation, training, and guidance by individuals who have oftentimes worked within their respective fields for many years.²,³,⁴ SRRs are also sometimes referred to as shared facilities, core facilities, research core, or any combination of the three. For the purposes of this paper, we are utilizing the term shared research resources to follow the Federal Association Society for Experimental Biology nomenclature.⁵

The Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities, a Federal Association Society for Experimental Biology member, has provided guidelines for authors who utilize an SRR in their research for how to either acknowledge SRRs or to include SRR staff as authors on a publication.⁶ However, traction on creating awareness regarding the importance of this practice is yet to be widely recognized amongst the research community. This paper aims to outline why it is important to acknowledge SRRs, the challenges to increasing acknowledgment of SRRs in research publications, and how researchers and SRRs can take some simple steps to ensure research conducted in an SRR is recognized.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE SRRS?

SRRs are often supported primarily by the research institution in which they are housed, charging fee-for-service recharge rates that are developed under the guidance of OMB A-133 guidelines, grant support, and, on occasion, endowment funds.⁷ Acknowledgment of the resources and expertise provided in SRRs enables institutions to experience increased success in attracting funding for new infrastructure and equipment grants, which aid in improving and adding to the many resources investigators need to perform cutting-edge research as well as secondarily enhancing the ability to attract and retain new research faculty.

However, the importance of acknowledging an SRR is not for the sole purpose of funding but is rather to support the sharing of information and expertise and, most importantly, to uphold the need for rigor, reproducibility, and the incorporation of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse (FAIR) principles.⁸ Acknowledging an SRR in publications will not only provide transparency to the resources an investigator leveraged in their studies but also informs other investigators how they may be contacted.⁸ When acknowledging an SRR, a researcher supports rigor and reproducibility in scientific publications, acknowledging that the SRR is responsible for supporting a researcher’s work.⁹ When an SRR is acknowledged, other researchers seeking to duplicate that work will know which SRR has familiarity with executing and completing the methods identified in the publication and can directly contact the SRR for help. Acknowledging the work an SRR did to support a researcher’s work supports the transparency of open data and how methodologies for research were done, which falls within the FAIR principles.⁸,¹⁰,¹¹

In addition, acknowledging an SRR helps to recognize the expertise for specialized technologies, techniques, and intellectual knowledge. Modern scientific research often relies on advanced technologies and specialized expertise beyond standard laboratory technique resources that SRR facilities and their skilled staff provide. In addition, SRRs have the expertise to utilize and interpret the data produced. The intellectual contributions of SRRs span various critical areas, including hypothesis generation, experimental design, control inclusion, protocol verification, data interpretation, and manuscript drafting and revision. Depending on the extent of their contribution, proper acknowledgment or authorship is warranted.

Finally, acknowledgments provide intrinsic motivation for individuals to develop and pursue careers within the SRR sector of research. Publication recognition and acknowledgment of work performed by an SRR and its staff is one of the most powerful key performance indicators that demonstrate the impact of their contributions to science and advancing research.¹,¹⁰,¹² In addition, this recognition is essential for tenure consideration, performance reviews, and promotions.

RIGOR AND REPRODUCIBILITY AND FAIR DATA PRINCIPLES

The data output from SRR holds significant value. Because researchers often rely on SRRs for specialized expertise and advanced technologies beyond their own laboratories, ensuring transparency in data generation is essential for reproducibility, rigor, and knowledge sharing.⁸,⁹,¹⁰,¹¹ FAIR principles—ensuring data is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reproducible—guide this process. Acknowledging contributors enhances accountability and strengthens the integrity of published research. Not all SRR facilities are created equal, making it critical for readers to distinguish between those who generated the science, the data behind specific techniques, or outputs from instruments. This clarity fosters reproducibility and allows other researchers to identify reliable sources to support their own studies. Making the sources of support such as SRRs known and findable is an important aspect for FAIR principles.⁸,⁹,¹⁰,¹¹

With the exponential growth of scientific data, the importance of linking the generation of created data to an SRR allows experts within the SRR to ensure data can be replicated, help with any follow-up questions for clarity of how the work was done, and provide further documentation if needed for individuals interested in learning more about the study. A key aspect of FAIR principles focuses on being able to provide documentation and metadata that can be interoperable across different platforms or from the generation of standard file formats. Most SRR facilities are aware of the software capacities and analytical platforms for which their file formats may be reused

As data-sharing management plans are now a required component of the National Institutes of Health grant submission process, SRR facilities can help with ensuring that any data they generate and subsequently use in client publication adheres to the FAIR principles. For instance, SRR staff would be knowledgeable in ensuring that quality controls for raw instruments and experimental data are available and be able to help support data analysis, storage, and interpretation for data used in a client publication. In addition, SRRs as the generators of the data will also provide important framework for the study’s data management plan and recommended use of appropriate data repositories.

CHALLENGES WITH ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Several factors contribute to the lack of acknowledgment or citation of SRRs in publications and presentations. These challenges often stem from organizational culture, social dynamics, timing constraints, journal requirements, and structural barriers—such as the absence of effective tracking mechanisms for publications that recognize core facilities.

Organizational culture and social dynamics can subtly influence acknowledgment practices in research publications. One common point of ambiguity is whether SRRs should be cited at all, given that they are often accessed through a fee-for-service model. Some investigators argue that financial transactions negate the need for recognition. However, this perspective overlooks the precedent set by citing specialized reagents or instruments in the methods section—resources that, like SRRs, play a crucial role in research outcomes yet often go unacknowledged. Addressing this discrepancy is essential to ensuring proper credit for contributions that enhance research rigor and reproducibility.

Timing presents another challenge in acknowledging SRRs. Since publications may be drafted months or even years after experiments are conducted, the critical support and resources used during a study can be inadvertently overlooked. Ensuring proper recognition requires persistent reinforcement, reminding investigators of the importance of citing core facilities in publications and presentations. Additionally, many journals fail to emphasize the necessity of detailed methods sections—an oversight that can hinder scientific rigor and reproducibility. The methods sections should not be an afterthought, and the listing of SRRs that were used should be a requirement.¹³,¹⁴

Additional challenges with tracking publications involve the nomenclature that investigators will use to refer to an SRR apart from its formal name. Indeed, researchers may use common or alternative names for the same SRR, and at times, even the institution in which the SRR is housed may not be acknowledged. Many researchers that do acknowledge an SRR will utilize different names to identify the SRR in a publication or presentation even though it may be the same SRR within an organization. For example, the Research Flow Cytometry Core may also be listed in a publication as the Cell Sorting Facility, Flow Core, Cytometry and Analysis Facility, or any combination of flow, cell, analysis, and sorting. This misidentification makes it extremely difficult to search for and track publications that may acknowledge the work they do. This is precisely the reason developing a process that can be universally accepted by researchers and SRRs to track publications is so important. One such process is the use of Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs).

USING RRIDS TO INCREASE SRR ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND RECOGNITION

RRIDs

SRRs are not off-the-shelf services that are available to all researchers. SRRs are specialized areas of expertise and services available to investigators through the support of their institution, recharge rates, and indirect support from the very grants that are brought into the organization.

The resources needed to track and ensure acknowledgment of SRRs are difficult to manage.

Using an RRID is the easiest way for an SRR to track publications that have acknowledged their work.¹²,¹⁵ An RRID is a number that can be assigned to an SRR, much like an ORCID is assigned to an investigator, a digital object identifier is assigned to a publication, and a Globally Unique Identifier is assigned to a research participant—these are all part of the family of classifiers called persistent digital identifiers (PIDs). PIDs remain associated with the item, person, or object for the duration of its life. If name changes were to take place due to marriage or divorce or if an organization was to rename an SRR due to the evolving nature of science, the PID that is connected to the person or SRR would remain the same—linking all the work done by that one entity together.

The use of RRIDS can also be used for tracking certain types of organisms, antibodies, cell lines, plasmids, software tools, and databases. These items are often encouraged to be assigned to an RRID to help increase the transparency, and therefore rigor and reproducibility, of research.

Obtaining an RRID

Obtaining an RRID for an SRR is a simple matter. Two websites offer a point of entry for this process; starting with abrf.org/core-marketplace or scicrunch.org allows users to set up and create an RRID for their SRR. If there are multiple SRRs in your organization, it may be best to submit a document for all your SRRs at the same time. An administrator of the SRR or a leader among the SRRs of your organization can work with the administrators at any of these websites to facilitate the process.

Maintaining an RRID

The beauty of an RRID is that for the life of the SRR, the assigned number will not change. Name changes happen, much like marriages and ORCIDs, but the SRR RRID number will remain unchangeable. Of course, in the case of an SRR name change, remember to update the RRID record with either website mentioned above.

Sharing your RRID

Once your RRID is generated, it is important to share this information with your customers and SRRs on why an RRID should be used in the list of acknowledgments, mentioned in the methods section of publications, and listed on presentations and websites. Advertising your RRID across the SRR internal and external websites, listing it in email signatures, and even posting it at the entrances of offices and lab space is good practice to remind clients to cite work performed by the SRR.

Tracking RRIDs for SRRs

Tracking an RRID does not have to be a manual process. Indeed, it can be automated through one of the several publication-tracking software systems that are available to organizations (ex., iLab, Stratocore (PPMS), etc.). Utilizing the RRID much like the ORCID in these types of systems will allow for a profile of the SRR to be created. The SRR can then track any publications that reference the RRID and verify those publications were supported by their SRR before adding them to their public profile. In addition, keywords may be stored within these systems, allowing for enhanced tracking of publications in case an RRID is not leveraged within the publication.

Figure 1. Created in BioRender. White, N. (2025) https://BioRender.com/bxvo97o. View publication license here.

RRIDs support rigor and reproducibility

As mentioned above, an RRID is attached to an SRR’s identity for the duration of its existence within the institution. The numeric tag associated with an SRR can also remain intact even if the name of the SRR changes across its lifetime. This allows for tracking of the sourcing of expertise that supported the work put forth in a publication or grant. Identifying the work, seeing how it was facilitated, and being able to contact the individuals who helped to generate the information are central to upholding the rigors of science. The reproducibility of science conducted within research papers is of equal importance. Identifying the SRR experts who conducted the work for a researcher presented in a publication facilitates contact regarding inquiries concerning how the experiment, analysis, or tools were used in a particular method, especially for methods and instruments that represent innovative science.

SUMMARY

The acknowledgment of an SRR is more than a courtesy highlighting its support in generating data and analyses presented in a publication. It is a key performance indicator that is important for maintaining institutional support and career development for SRR staff. The ability to track publications accurately to each SRR that assisted in producing results for a publication is important for demonstrating their research contributions to administration officials. Moreover, SRRs have the unique ability to serve as a central connection to multiple different scientific disciplines. Their technologies, services, and staff expertise can often be extended and used in different areas of study. Acknowledging the ability of these resources to operate across the organization and contribute to discovery is important not only for funding but also for career growth and sustainability. Equally important, acknowledging the contribution of SRRs to advancing scientific research is critical for upholding the rigor and reproducibility principles that all scientists should be practicing responsibly.