The iBioTUM, a central research infrastructure and renowned institution of the Medical Faculty, forms a vital building block of medical research. Its operation follows a financial model based on the principles of Core Facilities. This system includes financial support from the Faculty of Medicine and the Klinikum rechts der Isar. However, individual project-related services are billed to the participating institutions. This is necessary to finance the operation of iBioTUM and, since iBioTUM largely forgoes its own research activities, to maintain a high standard.

In a world dominated by regulation, iBioTUM navigates a series of laws and formal frameworks. These include Bavarian and federal budget regulations, grant regulations, and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. All of these regulations require comprehensive compliance management as well as a transparent and well-separated accounting system.

To illustrate the impact of these regulations on the accounting of iBioTUM services, we provide a detailed explanation here.

• Scientists from the clinical department of the Faculty of Medicine,
• Scientists from the preclinical department of the Faculty of Medicine,
• Scientists from the Technical University of Munich (outside the Faculty of Medicine), the German Heart Institute and the Helmholtz Zentrum München, and
• Researchers from industry.

For projects in the first three categories, a distinction is made between those that are carried out with budgetary funds and those that are financed with public funding. This takes into account the different legal frameworks underlying these two types of funding, which should not be mixed. In addition, different funding agencies explicitly allow biobanking applications. Therefore, our services must be taken into account and applied for in advance during the application process.

In the calculation of expenses, we carefully distinguish between the project-related additional costs incurred in processing the requests of our scientists and the costs that arise independently of the individual projects and are necessary to ensure the continuous operation of iBioTUM.

We are also happy to work with industry. However, in this context, as a government institution, we are not allowed to subsidize (according to Article 116 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union). Therefore, in these cases, we work with full service costs. This practice is widespread and is applied in all research institutions.

For an estimate of the costs incurred for your service, you can refer to our website[LINK]. However, exact billing will not be done until a collaboration agreement (for category 3 and 4) or a cooperation agreement (for category 1 and 2) has been signed. Additional costs may be incurred if additional needs are expressed by the scientists during a consultation.