Operations and management services

The BMS Lab has cutting-edge research facilities specially designed to support a range of research experiments and studies with participants. Read more about these specialised lab spaces on our facilities page:

The BMS Lab has a wide range of equipment and software that can be reserved for research, projects or courses. Depending on the scope the lab may provide alternatives to the equipment’s you require or acquire the specific requests. After deliberation, the acquisition of new equipment is done pro-actively based upon signals received by the lab, developments in the market or after inquiries by researchers and educators.

As part of the best practices and extensive guidelines of The University of Twente, the BMS Lab provides data storage and processing facilities to researchers and students that have a project signed up with us. 

We provide three main services in this domain:

Every use of the lab's facilities or equipment requires the registration of a project, a reservation for the equipment or lab spaces and approval from the lab's team. The BMS Lab uses a web form to guide interested parties through the process of registering and approving a project and reserving the needed facilities.

Please note that the process from receiving the request to approval of request can take up to 5 business days and that projects may only start after receiving approval. The facilities of The BMS Lab are available (mostly) for free for students and employees of the BMS faculty of the University of Twente.

It is allowed to bring equipment from the BMS Lab with you outside of the lab for research or educational purposes. Do however note that the lab has limited insurance coverage outside of its facilities.

This can be seen on the reservation page. Browse through the calendar in the period your are interested and see if your preferred item is already reserved.

If you foresee that you need to use the equipment or software for longer than you indicated when lending it, you will need to inform the BMS Lab of this. It is always possible to extend the lending period, however approval of this is dependent on incoming reservations for said equipment. Please come by or send us an email if you wish to extend.

The BMS Lab aims to aid students and researchers at the University of Twente’s BMS faculty in their research and education. We provide support by supplying and advising on the use of technology in research. Most of our services are free for BMS faculty staff and students. Students and staff members can use our sign-up procedure to request both our expertise and facilities for use in their research, projects or educational activities.

BMS faculty students or staff members
The lab will generally try to honour requests that fit within the guidelines and meet the requirements. Furthermore, the lab requires adequate provisions for secure data management (read more about this on our policy page). Moreover, the educational or research activity should be officially part of the BMS faculty. This means that students that are supervised by a BMS faculty staff member in their research can in most cases use the lab’s facilities as well.

Follow the following steps:

• Go to the project sign-up page.
• Follow the instructions listed on-screen and fill in the form.
• Once complete, you can proceed to reserve your equipment from the e-mail you’ve received or the on page instructions.
• Having difficulties? Read the How to reserve equipment? / How to reserve lab space? pages for more information.
• You will receive a confirmation by the BMS Lab within 5 work days.

Please note that in some cases we require additional information or documents that are otherwise missing. We will contact you by e-mail and can only proceed to review your sign-up and/or reservation request once the information is complete and correct.

We love to cooperate with other researchers. We are funded by the university to support the work of BMS faculty staff members and students. In some cases, a non-BMS student can still freely use our facilities. For example, when a student is supervised by a BMS faculty staff member in their research. Furthermore, research or educational activities conducted without the co-operation of the BMS faculty, but that fit within the labs scope and focus, can of course inquire about using our facilities. In those cases, there might be a need for financial compensation in exchange for use of the lab’s facilities or expertise for favorable rates for University of Twente personnel and students.

External companies
External companies are welcome to do an inquiry. Such inquiries will be evaluated.

Do you have questions about this subject? Or, are you not part of the BMS faculty and interested in using our equipment, expertise or facilities? Then feel free to contact us.

The lab’s lending and usage conditions specify that the lender is fully responsible and liable for the equipment in their care. In this case it thus also means that the lender is liable for any and all damages. Equipment valued (price when bought new) over 2.000 Euros is therefore not allowed to be taken off campus and in some cases not even outside of the BMS Labs facilities. Are you looking to use BMS Lab equipment outside of the lab's facilities in the Cubicus building at the University of Twente campus?

Is the total value (if bought new) of the equipment under 2.000 Euros? Then indicate your desire to bring it outside of the lab facilities when you register your project on the sign-up page (before you select and reserve your equipment).

Is the value (when bought new) of the equipment you are looking to use over 2.000 Euros? Then indicate this desire when you register your project. You might as a result:

• Be limited in your use of or travel with the equipment.
• Need to insure the equipment for the value of the equipment when bought new.
• Need to arrange safe and secure storage or return the equipment each day.
• Have your request rejected.

Employees of the University of Twente can often more easily use equipment outside of the BMS Lab’s facilities, as their department can take over the liability.