Effective July 1, 2025
Fees for Equipment and Staff Effort
| Instrument | Time of Use | Hourly Fee |
|---|---|---|
| JEOL JEM 1010 | Prime working hours (Mon-Fri, 8am-6pm) | $39.00 |
| JEOL JEM 1010 | Evenings & weekends | $34.00 |
| JEOL JEM 1400plus | Prime working hours (Mon-Fri, 10am-7pm) | $50.00 |
| JEOL JEM 1400plus | Evenings & weekends | $43.00 |
| JEOL JEM 3200FS | Prime working hours (Mon-Fri, 8am-6pm) | ask |
| JEOL JEM 3200FS | Evenings & weekends | ask |
| ThermoFisher Teneo SEM Use | Prime working hours (Mon-Fri, 8am-6pm) | $55.00 |
| ThermoFisher Teneo SEM Use | Evenings & weekends | $50.00 |
| ThermoFisher Teneo VolumeScope Use | Prime working hours (Mon-Fri, 8am-6pm) | $39.00 |
| ThermoFisher Teneo VolumeScope Use | Evenings & weekends | $34.00 |
| ThermoFisher Talos Artica Data Collection * | all hours | $66.00 |
* additional fees for grid clipping and grid loading into the Arctica will also apply
Unfortunately, the Electron Microscopy Center (EMC) has been told by the university to discontinue our policy of offering lower hourly rates when users reserve large blocks of time.
NOTE: The above fees apply to all academic users, including researchers from outside the IU system. We also encourage commercial users to use our facilities. They will normally be charged at 3x the standard academic research rate (with appropriate discounts when applicable).
| Machine | Unit of use | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Wohlwend High Pressure Freeze | Per use | No cost except for liquid nitrogen |
| Leica AFS-2 Freeze Substitution Device | Per day | No cost except for liquid nitrogen |
| FEI Vitrobot | Per use | $50.00 |
| EMS manual plunge freezer | Per use | $20.00 |
| Ultramicrotomes | Per use | No cost |
| Sputter coater, Critical point dryer, carbon evaporator, glow discharge devices, plasma cleaner, etc. | Per use | No cost |
We are attempting to encourage use of the Wohlwend high pressure freezer and the Leica AFS-2 freeze substitution machine by not charging fees for their operation. Both instruments do require significant amounts of liquid nitrogen and those costs will be passed on to users. We strongly urge users to consider working with these devices at times when other people are also using them in order be able to share the liquid nitrogen costs. Be aware that the largest use of liquid nitrogen is initially cooling the machines to their operating temperatures and that once cooled, both machines will stay cold and useful with minimal expenditure of additional liquid nitrogen for many hours/days. The EMC will play a major organizational role in such scheduling if so requested by our users.tion.
Fee-for-service work
The staff of the EMC can do a limited amount of "fee-for-service" work, meaning that the staff does all of the work involved in preparing samples for microscopy, the actual imaging and/or any further analysis. Fees for this work are based on an hourly fee for time the staff spends plus all the standard fees for the use of any equipment. Staff time is charged regardless of whether staff are included as authors on resulting publications.
| Staff time | Rate |
|---|---|
| Prime hours | $58 per hour |
| Non-prime hours | $87 per hour |
Such projects will need to be discussed in detail with the staff before work begins. The procedure for starting any new project with the EMC is described elsewhere.
Fee-for-service work is normally performed during what was referred to above as "prime time hours" (effectively 9 am to 5 pm, Monday thru Friday) and is billed at those standard rates regardless of when the actual work is done. PI's may request that instruments be used during non-prime hours and will be billed appropriately, but in such situations, staff time will be billed at 1.5x the prime hourly rate.
Fee-for-service use of the EMC is best for the sort of work that will not be repeated frequently enough to justify training someone completely new to the equipment. However, the EMC staff strongly urges repeat users of the facility to invest in the training necessary to operate on a fee-for-use basis. Since we would like to encourage people to do as much of the actual work as possible, training new users in equipment operation will always involve only the cost of the instrument used (i.e., training does not add the additional cost of staff time). Training for the various pieces of equipment is described in more detail here.
When the staff performs fee-for-service work, we expect to be in very close contact with the people who have requested the work. When this fee-for-service work is initiated by students, post-docs or other research personnel, we also expect to be in contact with their faculty advisers. At a minimum, the EMC staff will provide a report either whenever there is something new to report or bi-weekly (whichever comes first). Users can also negotiate additional details of such communication during initial discussions of a project. This might include reports for each imaging session, weekly instead of bi-weekly progress reports, reports after agreed-upon benchmarks have been reached or any combination of these things. We strongly want to avoid situations where the amount of work and the total costs of fee-for-service work are unexpected, and feel that the best way to avoid this is through communication.
The EMC will provide up to eight hours of fee-for-service work on new projects at no cost other than equipment fees. This is to encourage people to start new projects and to enable them to assess feasibility and likely costs of the project.
All the equipment in the EMC can be used on a "fee-for-use" basis, meaning that once people are trained to use specific pieces of equipment, there is a fee for the use of that equipment based either on the amount of instrument time reserved or (for some equipment) per use. Our fee-for-use plan is the most cost-effective way to use EMC resources.
Most instrument use in the evenings (usually 6 pm until 8 am the following morning) and on weekends (usually 6 pm Friday until 8 am Monday) is discounted by ~12.25%.
The fee structure shown above is evaluated at the end of each fiscal year (June 30). Adjustments to these fees may be made at that time. We will solicit user input on proposed fee changes and also attempt to give users sufficient warning about fee increases that are the result of these evaluations.
Non-academic users
As noted above, the EMC facilities are also open to use by any commercial interests, provided this does not take time away from our academic users. Potential commercial users should contact the staff about a project's feasibility, time estimates and approximate fees. Details of any agreement between the EMC and any commercial interests can be negotiated on a per project basis, bearing in mind that a general estimate is that commercial users will be charged at 3x the posted equipment rates and 2x the posted staff rate.
The rules
A list of rules and practices regarding the fees described here, use of EMC equipment and other facility policies is located here. In the situation where an instrument is scheduled but not used at all, the scheduled user will be billed a flat fee, effectively a reservation fee that is forgiven when the reservation is used. The full hourly rate will be charged for the entire scheduled time if any amount of that time is actually used.
NOTE 2: It is always possible to cancel a scheduled session on the instruments, but such cancellations must be done at least 24 hours before the scheduled start time to avoid billing.
NOTE 3: Users can also avoid being billed for un-used microscope time by finding someone who will use the instrument during the time the user cannot. Please explain these situations to the EMC staff to be certain that billing is done correctly.
NOTE 4: There will obviously be circumstances where instruments stop working during a user's session. In such cases, users will only be billed for the time not affected by instrument issues. This also applies to cases where a previous user has left an instrument in a state where it does not perform properly.
Additional costs
For the most part, we expect that users will provide their own "consumables" such as chemicals for sample preparation, transmission electron microscope (TEM) grids and grid boxes, scanning electron microscope (SEM) stubs, etc. The EMC can provide limited materials when starting a project (where the costs of these items will be recouped from users at a later time). The staff can provide examples of most consumables and make suggestions for where many items can be obtained, and can even become involved in a bulk purchase for multiple users in situations where large orders create significant cost savings. The EMC does not generally charge for things like blotting paper for the Vitrobot and most negative stains for TEM, but heavy use of such items may result in changes in this policy. We also do not charge for storage of frozen samples or for routine use of liquid nitrogen during imaging or plunge-freezing.
Although the costs of an ongoing project must be borne by the individual users, the EMC is currently exploring the possibility of making most commonly used EM supplies and consumables available to users essentially at our cost. Contact the staff if you have questions about this policy.
Finally, we will not charge for staff time spent in any sort of consultation or EMC project development.
Recognition of EMC and personnel
We expect to see acknowledgement of the facility and its personnel in all papers and public presentations that make use of any sort of data obtained using the EMC. In situations where the staff generates images or any other data that are included in publications and/or presentations, these efforts should be acknowledged using staff member's names, their EMC affiliation (including the IUB-EMC's Research Resource Identifier - RRID - number: SCR_017845) and details of their effort. In addition, we expect that any sort of intellectual contribution to a project by members of the staff will be acknowledged with co-authorship. Finally, we ask that users of the facility discuss any work done by the staff before inclusion in any sort of publication or presentation.
Software
Some users of the facilities may discover that it will be necessary to perform post-acquisition analysis of data using the software involved during data collection. This is especially true for data recorded using STEM in combination with EDS or EELS. So-called "off-line" licenses for Gatan's DigitalMicrograph or Oxford's INCA or AZtec software can be purchased for about $500 each and bulk discounts are available if there is sufficient interest. Please contact the staff concerning the purchase of additional off-line licenses.
The EMC also maintains all the software necessary for cryoEM data analysis (including the major X-ray crystallography packages CCP4 and phenix) on several of IU's computer clusters. A list of that software is available here. Please contact David Morgan about the use of these resources.