Sharing equipment responsibly

Sharing equipment can be a trigger point for arguments in any lab. Who changed the settings on this incubator? Why is this centrifuge still broken? These disputes can quickly escalate and become personal. So the way my group works might sound like it would generate a lot of conflict.

At the technical university I work at in Stockholm, Sweden, several small research groups share a whole floor of lab space. Every piece of equipment in the lab can be used by everyone, no matter whose grant paid for it. Yet despite the risk of instrument damage this policy might seem to invite, our diverse collection of microbiologists, biochemists, polymer chemists and materials scientists all work together in a functional sort of harmony.