Powering Discovery: Streamlining Lab Logistics to Enable Research
Oregon State University continues to drive research excellence and innovation, advancing discovery in areas ranging from climate science to robotics, clean energy, biotechnology, arts, and social sciences. Across the Corvallis, OSU-Cascades, and Newport campuses, more than 100 research labs generate discoveries that fuel a thriving world. While some are supported by individual colleges, national research centers, or federal institutes, many are operated by the university.
Managing research labs at OSU’s scale and complexity comes with real challenges: hundreds of specialized instruments with unique protocols, thousands of product and service orders, rigorous federal compliance requirements, and substantial administrative workload for lab staff and researchers. To maintain coordinated, equitable access to highly utilized research facilities and equipment, the Division of Research & Innovation (DRI) harnesses the power of RELMS.
What is RELMS?
Research Equipment & Lab Management System (RELMS) is a centralized system that transforms how OSU’s labs run by simplifying operations and management. It brings together user access, scheduling, ordering, billing, and compliance into a single, integrated platform, streamlining operations for investigators while reducing administrative burden for facility staff and lab administrators.
RELMS is not just an administrative tool; it’s a catalyst for research productivity and scale. In fiscal year 2025:
21 core facilities were operating within RELMS, with continued growth planned
RELMS processed 12,323 product and service orders, supporting efficient access to shared research resources
Core facilities supported $453 million in externally funded research, directly enabling discoveries across the university
More than 130 graduate students and 65 undergraduate students relied on core facilities for their research and training
How does it support research at OSU?
OSU’s RELMS supports a diverse portfolio of 21 laboratories and facilities spanning life sciences, physical sciences, engineering, marine and coastal research, data and computation, and emerging interdisciplinary areas. Facility use ranges from genomics and microscopy to nuclear magnetic resonance, stable isotope analysis, quantum materials, and high‑performance computing.
OSU’s core facilities serve as the model empowering the university to be more competitive for external funding for major research equipment and infrastructure. Federal sponsors increasingly emphasize shared, well‑governed research infrastructure that demonstrates broad access, sustainable cost recovery, transparent subsidies and strong compliance alignment — expectations reflected in Office of Management and Budget guidance and reinforced through agency review criteria for large equipment and instrumentation awards. OSU’s core facility framework addresses these requirements by centralizing governance, standardizing fee models, and documenting institutional investment and impact.
How does RELMS support Prosperity Widely Shared?
Core facilities and RELMS play a direct role in advancing Prosperity Widely Shared and OSU’s commitment to ensuring research excellence fuels broad societal, economic, and workforce benefits. By democratizing access to advanced research tools, these shared resources support entrepreneurship, technology transfer, workforce development, and partnerships with industry and community innovators.
The RELMS framework is built to scale. Its architecture can support additional laboratories, new research domains, and future capabilities, whether that means expanding shared instrumentation, launching new interdisciplinary cores, or supporting visionary research infrastructure that pushes beyond today’s boundaries. The potential is expansive, enabling the system to grow in alignment with OSU’s ambitions.
As OSU continues to grow its research enterprise, core facilities and RELMS will remain foundational to that success. Ongoing investments in shared infrastructure, policy modernization and system expansion position the university to support the next generation of discoveries across disciplines, campuses, and communities.
