ReCoN - A Year of Research Equipment and Services

Almost exactly one year ago, the “ReCoN – Research Commons Network” software went live as part of the EXU technology platforms initiative. We would like to take this opportunity to look back on the work that has been done and to express our gratitude to everyone who has helped and supported this project.

ReCoN digitizes booking and billing processes for technology platforms and research core facilities. A wide selection of bookable research equipment and services—from both TUD and the Faculty of Medicine—is already available in the software. This makes research infrastructure more visible and accessible to researchers than ever before—an important step in a time of increasingly limited resources. Billing processes are becoming significantly more transparent, faster, and more efficient; data silos are being reduced; and administrative processes are being harmonized across the entire TUD.

ReCoN is now used in 11 core facilities; 1,322 people are registered in the software, and 273 research groups manage their billing data through the portal. Users can book 130 scientific instruments, request 228 services, and manage 254 different types of consumables. Last year, nearly 11,000 reservations were made and 800 service orders were created. A total of 744 billing records were prepared for seamless processing in the SAP systems of TUD and the School of Medicine.

Some diagrams from ReCoN

The integration of a wide variety of services, booking, and billing processes into ReCoN was preceded by numerous discussions with staff from each individual core facility to analyze and test the implementation. We would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank everyone involved for their dedicated cooperation!

In the coming months, we plan to integrate additional Core Facilities, thereby significantly expanding the range of services available in ReCoN. For more information, please contact our team at or visit our website.