Chapter 2534: Main Aspects Overall

"What thing is expensive, Yingying?" Unable to suppress his curiosity, Wei Shangquan asked her softly. The class’s top female student was formidable and might know what sort of precious treasures the Immortal Brother Laboratory possessed that were so costly.

Regarding this question, Xie Wanying glanced at Student Wei, a wealthy second-generation student, and found it a bit difficult to articulate. Perhaps the son of an old general manager owning billions wouldn’t think these things expensive. Having been reborn and engaged in research, she understood the pain of expensive experiments. Especially since most students and mentors were pressing financial limits when conducting experiments.

"Does his laboratory have some imported equipment?" Wei Shangquan guessed again.

This might be the case. Student Wei might indeed be like what he said, never having been involved in company management. Knowing company management can offer some insights into laboratory management too, understanding the financial demands of completing a project aren’t simple.

The expenses of running a laboratory generally fall into the following categories.

One category is research operating costs. For example, retrieving documents from domestic and international databases requires funds, printing files, etc., all these need money.

Next are the well-known laboratory material costs. Most people probably first think of the drugs needed for experiments that cost money. What isn’t known is that mentors using school laboratories are renting them—how much rent per square meter per day, how much are daily electricity and water bills—all must be accounted for. For medical experiments requiring laboratory animals, these have designated animal laboratories. Raising these animals requires more than buying them; you have to finance the feeding, and additional renting costs, while adhering to school laboratory regulations.

The third is the academic conference fees. Mentors leading projects participate in national and international academic exchanges, and this also requires financial backing. The farther the destination, the more money needed. How far one can go depends on how much funding the mentor can apply for.

No wonder some cunning students like to investigate and observe which mentors travel more frequently and further, indicating ample funding. A mentor with ample funding has another benefit, as described below.

The fourth concerns labor fees related to the students themselves. As a student providing experimental work for your mentor, you also do a bit of work to earn some living expenses. A generous mentor won’t short-change you; they might even cover your round-trip flight expenses for visiting family.

With enough money, you can make things happen. Consider the release of research results, they require validation. It’s not enough just for one party to say so, these are called certification fees. Paying others to say a few words of praise.

Students refer to their mentors as Boss, calling themselves research workmen.

This Boss actually needs to draw money from investors’ pockets, lacking sufficient capital themselves. The Boss’s ability to negotiate funding relies on technical skills.

The right criteria for students finding a good Boss is looking at the Boss’s technical skills. This general direction is not wrong.

What reflects technical skill, experimental results—it is necessary to produce successful experiments. The key to deciding the success or failure of these points, besides the personnel, is the experimental materials.

It is conceivable that most experiments’ costs are determined by the overall expense of laboratory materials. The laboratory is built by others, containing the environment and instruments, no need for initial investment. The true cost lies in the disposable materials. In medical experiments, what’s commonly showcased in the news as costly? Don’t deny it; the media loves to speak the truth. It is the laboratory animals that are expensive.

Some laboratory animals are shockingly expensive.