Imaging core facilities across Europe may house some of the most advanced microscopes and image analysis expertise in the life sciences, yet the researchers they are meant to serve often do not know they exist. That is the central finding of a new mixed-methods study published in EPJ Research Infrastructures, which examined communication, outreach and stakeholder engagement practices among imaging core facilities embedded in the Euro-BioImaging community, a distributed European Research Infrastructure Consortium. Fourteen of fifteen interviewed experts reported that many researchers remain unaware of the technologies, expertise and services available within their own institutions or research environments, a gap the study’s authors describe as a persistent barrier to facility utilisation and long-term sustainability.
The study, led by Baubak Bajoghli, combined semi-structured expert interviews with a quantitative online survey of research infrastructure stakeholders.
Nearly seventy percent of these respondents, thirty-seven in total, were affiliated with Euro-BioImaging, while thirteen represented other core facilities. Most were facility heads or staff members directly involved in day-to-day management. The participating facilities spanned the full technological spectrum of biological and biomedical imaging: sixty-six percent offered light microscopy, fifty-one percent electron microscopy, thirty-two percent image data analysis, fifteen percent preclinical imaging, and ten percent each plant and medical imaging, with several facilities providing multiple services.
The interviews painted a candid picture of communication shortfalls. Nine of the fifteen interviewees said outreach activities at their facilities require improvement, and one estimated that existing outreach generates only “between 1 and 5% new users.” Websites, newsletters, flyers and institutional announcements were the most common tools, but several participants questioned whether these channels actually reach new audiences. One interviewee captured the frustration of long-serving facility staff: “After 22 years of providing services and outreach at campus, people still say, ‘Oh, we didn’t know about you.'” Another noted that external users may be equally unaware of opportunities to access specialised technologies through national nodes or the wider Euro-BioImaging network.
Survey data quantified how informal these practices remain. Only four percent of respondents reported having a formal communication plan in place, and a further fifteen percent said such a plan was under development; thirteen of the fifteen interviewees confirmed their facility lacked one. The most frequently cited barrier, reported by fifty-five percent of respondents, was a lack of dedicated personnel and expertise. Consistent with this, only nineteen percent of facilities reported at least one full-time equivalent allocated to communication tasks. Insufficient budget and limited access to communication tools were cited far less often. Thirty-eight percent of respondents described their communication style as reactive and dialogical, driven by feedback and ad hoc interactions, seventeen percent as primarily one-way and informational, and just fifteen percent reported participatory, strategically coordinated communication involving formal planning.
To map the stakeholder landscape, the study combined interview data with survey ratings in which participants scored each stakeholder group’s interest and influence on a five-point scale. The resulting two-dimensional stakeholder map placed users in the most prominent position, reflecting high levels of both interest and influence, while institutional leadership and funding organisations also received relatively high influence scores. The differences in rating distributions between stakeholder groups were statistically significant for both interest and influence, with Kruskal-Wallis tests yielding p-values below 0.0001. Twelve stakeholder groups were identified overall, ranging from users and institutional leadership to funding organisations, technology providers, scientific collaborators, industrial partners and policy-makers.
A striking mismatch emerged when the map was compared with actual outreach priorities. Researchers within respondents’ own institutions were the most frequently targeted group, named by seventy-nine percent of participants. By contrast, only forty-five percent reported actively engaging institutional leadership, and public funding organisations were targeted by just 22.6 percent. The authors argue this imbalance matters because most imaging core facilities operate under hybrid funding models in which user fees rarely cover the substantial costs of state-of-the-art instrumentation, maintenance, software and highly qualified personnel. Long-term sustainability therefore depends not only on attracting users but also on maintaining strong relationships with institutions, funders and policy-makers, precisely the groups receiving comparatively little communication attention.
From the qualitative analysis, the study derives a four-dimensional framework of visibility: informational, local, user-centred and stakeholder-oriented. Informational visibility covers websites, digital platforms, branding and social media that make services discoverable; local visibility targets the immediate institutional environment through seminars, teaching and campus outreach; user-centred visibility encompasses direct interactions such as consultations, user meetings and feedback mechanisms; and stakeholder-oriented visibility extends communication to funders, policy-makers, industry and society through annual reports, open days and ambassador programmes. Across the interviews, twenty-one distinct communication instruments were identified and grouped into these dimensions. The framework also assigns different responsibilities across organisational levels: facilities focus on local and user-centred visibility, national nodes coordinate external communication, and the central hub handles network-wide branding and engagement with funders and policy-makers.
The study also tested whether established marketing concepts from non-profit management can be transferred to research infrastructures. Survey respondents reported low formal implementation of the segmentation-targeting-positioning framework, yet the interviews revealed that many facilities apply its elements informally. Only twenty-two percent of respondents explicitly communicated a value proposition for their facility, although twenty-eight percent reported clearly distinctive or unique competences and forty-nine percent said some form of differentiation is communicated externally, most often specialised technologies, expert staff, advanced workflows and unique service combinations. The authors note that many interviewees initially equated segmentation with unequal treatment of users, a misconception they correct: segmentation adapts communication and services to different audiences without affecting open and fair access. Scepticism towards marketing terminology was common, with one interviewee arguing “there is no market because it is artificially created,” yet fourteen of fifteen interviewees considered strategic communication and stakeholder engagement potentially valuable.
The authors acknowledge important limitations. The study did not systematically evaluate the effectiveness of individual communication instruments, and future research should identify which measures best engage specific stakeholder groups. Comparative studies across other research infrastructure domains and longitudinal designs would help assess whether the framework, developed specifically for imaging facilities within Euro-BioImaging, transfers more broadly. Nevertheless, the authors conclude that communication and stakeholder engagement should be treated as core management functions rather than supporting activities, and that the findings are broadly applicable to distributed research infrastructures and other service-oriented scientific organisations seeking visibility, user acquisition and sustainable funding.
Subject of Research: Communication and stakeholder engagement practices in imaging core facilities within distributed European research infrastructures
Article Title: Strengthening Visibility and Stakeholder Engagement in Research Infrastructures: Evidence from Imaging Core Facilities
Article References: Bajoghli, B. (2026). Strengthening Visibility and Stakeholder Engagement in Research Infrastructures: Evidence from Imaging Core Facilities. EPJ Research Infrastructures, 10(1), Article 19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41781-026-00176-5
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1007/s41781-026-00176-5
Keywords: research infrastructures, imaging core facilities, Euro-BioImaging, stakeholder engagement, science communication, visibility, outreach, microscopy, survey study, sustainability, non-profit marketing, stakeholder mapping
News Source: Denise Maddox. (October 29, 2026). Imaging Core Facilities Struggle With Visibility, Survey of European Research Infrastructure Finds. Scienmag.
