Dear Colleagues,
We’re truly grateful for the broad interest and continued engagement of the imaging community with FILM — both in terms of training and instrumental support. It’s a privilege to work with such a dedicated and enthusiastic user base.
At FILM, our staff have always strived to offer the highest level of support. Over the past two years, this has often meant going well beyond what’s expected: I personally left 26 days of annual leave unused in 2023, and 14 days in 2024. During long periods
with only 50% staffing, we’ve routinely worked 50–60 hour weeks to ensure continuity and excellence.
However, in 2025, including this April, we’ve come to a clear and important decision: in order to safeguard the sustainability of our service and the wellbeing of our staff, all team members are now strictly adhering to their official job descriptions and contracted
hours.
To make the best use of our time — across instrumental support, user assistance, and new technology development — we need your help.
A few important requests:
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Please avoid cancelling training sessions unless absolutely necessary. Each session takes significant time to organise, and we receive 2–4 training requests per day. Trainings are carefully
adapted to individual needs and continuously improved through user feedback.
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Plan your instrument bookings with care. Last-minute cancellations are challenging to reallocate.
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Updated cancellation policy: To improve efficiency and fairness, we are increasing the cancellation notice period for both training and instrument bookings from 12 hours to 24 hours.
We appreciate your understanding and cooperation as we continue to evolve FILM’s services in a sustainable, user-responsive direction. Thank you for working with us to keep this community thriving.
Warm regards, Volodymyr
Dr. Volodymyr Nechyporuk-Zloy (FILM Facility Manager)
Facility for Imaging by Light Microscopy