Research Opportunities

There are many academic institutions out there that do not possess even the basic analytical tools that we take for granted in the UK. Our primary purpose is to assist our fellow researchers by providing analytical instruments that can be used for practical hands-on analysis.

For example, universities in the UK have a whole plethora of instrumentation [hyperlink to We Can Recycle list in The Essentials section of ‘Donate Now’, listing the types of equipment we mean here] that can be used to facilitate in-house research projects. Universities in the developing world often have to pay significantly more for analysis and when samples are sent away they often have to wait a long time for their results. In some cases research is not economically viable and practical based education suffers.

We believe that practical research should be an integral part of any university education.

Our three main research objectives:
 

Affordable research opportunities

The capital cost of sophisticated instrumentation is prohibitive and in some cases practical based education is uneconomical.


By distributing seemingly redundant instrumentation to universities in the developing world we can offer research grade instrumentation to universities on a tight budget.

Running sophisticated analytical instrumentation can be an expensive business and we will do all we can to assist with finance. At RORO we are constantly looking for new avenues of funding to assist with installation costs, ultimately we will be looking to provide grants to cover some of the running costs.



Safe research opportunities

It is also very important that any recipient of the equipment can clearly demonstrate compliance with international health and safety legislation in terms of the provision of appropriate personal protective equipment.

Please see Assessment Criteria below.
 

Effective and accessible research opportunities

At RORO we believe that the instruments we recycle are precious and need to be used to their full potential. Equally there has to be an academic need for the instrumentation and applicants must clearly demonstrate this.


We also want our work to help to create real opportunities for those who would not usually be in a position to have access to the equipment needed. We aim to provide research opportunities to the poorer members of the global community that have traditionally been denied access in the past. To ensure this, one important criteria that needs to be satisfied by a university wishing to participate is that they have to provide education to their students based on the student’s academic prowess not their finances.
 

Assessment criteria for receipt of donated equipment from RORO

Any university wishing to re-use analytical instrumentation supplied by RORO must satisfy the site requirements [hyperlink to list of site requirements for different instruments – this will need to be written, including info such as in endnote. ], for example air-conditioned laboratory space and support staff with the experience necessary to run the instruments. Other basic site requirements include the provision of various services, such as high purity gases and a continuous power supply (we can provide uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems).


Once the site requirements have been satisfied we can assist with the installation and basic training on how to use the instrumentation. RORO consists of many experienced analytical instrument service engineers specialising in mass spectrometry, gas and liquid chromatography (GC and HPLC).

Along with any item shipped we will provide comprehensive information supplied by experienced installation engineers about what is required for installation and routine maintance.

Application form for instrument request.