Survey: Automation / Lab 4.0 · WeLoveScientists

Thank you for helping us create real value for you from day one. Please don't be nice — be honest. That helps us most. Thank you! The survey takes about 7–10 minutes. Your answers are treated confidentially and will be anonymized after evaluation.

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Step 1 of 6

Context

How big is your lab? *

1–5 people
6–10 people
11–20 people
21–50 people
51+ people
No lab environment

Which sector do you work in? *

Academic (university, university of applied sciences, …)
Research institute (Max Planck, Fraunhofer, CNRS, …)
Pharma
Biotech
Other industry
CRO
Healthcare (hospital, clinic, health center, …)
Self-employed physician (own practice, group practice, …)
Other

If you selected "Other": please describe briefly

What is your role? *

PhD student
Postdoc
Lab head
Group leader
R&D / discovery lead
Technical assistant
Other

If you selected "Other": please describe briefly

Step 2 of 6

Your most recent bottleneck

How often do you analyze experiments? *

daily
several times a week
weekly
monthly
per project
less often

Think of the last time you had to analyze an experiment. *

What exactly did you do (workflow) — what did you use, whom did you ask?

What was your biggest bottleneck in that situation? *

The biggest difficulty, your biggest problem?

Roughly how much time did this bottleneck cost you? *

less than 1 hour
1–4 hours
5–8 hours
1–2 days
2–5 days
1–2 weeks
more than 2 weeks
don’t know

When and how did this bottleneck most recently have a concrete impact on a deadline, an outcome, or a decision in the project? *

What are you using today to solve this problem? (tools, workarounds, processes) *

What does this workaround currently cost you — in time per week or money? *

Which scientific activity currently costs you the most time while delivering the least scientific value? *

If you imagine an ideal solution to this problem — what would that solution have to be able to do? *

Step 3 of 6

Activities

Which of these activities are the most burdensome for you? Select up to 3. *

The experiment process (hands-on)
Transferring raw data to your own laptop
Moving data between different programs (“copy-paste”)
Creating templates for the next experiment
Maintaining reproducibility
Data analysis
Data visualisation
Creating presentation slides
Documenting the experiment
Uploading to the electronic lab notebook
Using several different programs
Using complicated programs
Involving colleagues in the analysis process
Other

If you selected "Other": please describe briefly

Step 4 of 6

Your most burdensome activities

Please answer the following questions for each of the activities you just selected.

Without JavaScript: enter the names of the (up to 3) activities you selected in the previous section and answer the questions for each activity. Simply leave unused blocks empty.

Activity 1:

Name of the activity

How often do you perform this activity? *

rarely
monthly
weekly
several times a week
daily

How much time do you invest in it? *

negligible
less than 2 h per week
2–5 h per week
5–10 h per week
more than 10 h per week

How do you experience this activity? *

neutral
somewhat annoying
noticeably annoying
very annoying
extremely annoying

Activity 2:

Name of the activity

How often do you perform this activity? *

rarely
monthly
weekly
several times a week
daily

How much time do you invest in it? *

negligible
less than 2 h per week
2–5 h per week
5–10 h per week
more than 10 h per week

How do you experience this activity? *

neutral
somewhat annoying
noticeably annoying
very annoying
extremely annoying

Activity 3:

Name of the activity

How often do you perform this activity? *

rarely
monthly
weekly
several times a week
daily

How much time do you invest in it? *

negligible
less than 2 h per week
2–5 h per week
5–10 h per week
more than 10 h per week

How do you experience this activity? *

neutral
somewhat annoying
noticeably annoying
very annoying
extremely annoying

Which tools or providers do you currently use to deal with these activities? (optional)

Step 5 of 6

Decision & budget

Finally, about your environment: who decides — and what would a solution be worth? For the pricing questions, imagine — purely hypothetically — a tool that reliably solves the problem you described.

Who in your environment would decide on introducing such a tool? *

Myself
Lab head
Group leader
R&D / discovery lead
IT / procurement
don’t know

At what monthly price would this tool be so cheap that you would doubt its quality?

A rough estimate in € is enough. If you can’t judge it, simply leave the field empty.

What monthly price would feel inexpensive to you — good value for money?

From what monthly price would the tool feel expensive — but still conceivable given the benefit?

From what monthly price would the tool be out of the question for you?

And your lab or group: roughly what would it spend on a suitable solution (per month)? *

Your estimate is enough — it shows us what kind of solution is realistic at all for labs like yours.

nothing
less than €50
€50–200
€200–1,000
more than €1,000
can’t judge

Step 6 of 6

Final questions

Is there anything else about this topic you would like to tell us that we didn’t ask? (optional)

Would you like to receive the anonymized results as a benchmark? Then enter your email address here (optional).

Your email is stored separately from your answers and used only for sending the results. The results email will be in English where possible.

I agree to be contacted by email for a short conversation about my answers (voluntary, withdrawable at any time).

I have taken note of the privacy policy and consent to the processing of my responses for market research purposes. * (Privacy policy)