Question to wet lab life scientists and clinicians: is additional bioinformatics support from a freelancer an option?

Question

[BioITFreelancer]

Dear community,

I have noticed that there have already been some discussions about bioinformatics freelancing (e.g. Bioinformatics Freelance, Part-Time Jobs), mostly from the perspective of a bioinformatician.

However, I would like to use the opportunity here and hear also from wet lab life scientists and clinicians involved in biomedical data generation and requiring assistance with data analysis.

1. Do you think you could use additional bioinformatics support from a freelancer?

2. If yes, what type of analysis could you possibly imagine to outsource to a freelancer?

I appreciate your time and I look forward to hearing back from you!

Kind regards,
BioItFreelancer

[igor]

Working in an academic setting in the US, there are huge barriers to outsourcing. It's not trivial to even make small purchases from Amazon. Hiring someone external will involve a lot of paperwork. It's a lot simpler to find someone internal or a collaborator with bioinformatic resources.

From a freelancer perspective, I imagine it would be a lot more work to process all the billing paperwork than to do the actual bioinformatics.

In other words, you are getting into enterprise sales territory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_sales

[Joe]

I'm guessing somewhat, but if I know my university, they are extremely unlikely to approve the solicitation of a freelancer for this kind of work. On extremely rare cases, we've hired consultants through our technology transfer office, but generally when it comes to researchers, there will almost always be someone within the university with the skillset to advise if not actually work on the project.

Maybe its different elsewhere, but I'm almost certain it would be a non-starter in my uni, and probably that's true for much of the UK system. If you need a bioinformatician for a project, typically you'd have a collaborator at the outset of a project and/or the budget in a grant proposal to hire one.

[Kevin Blighe]

The freelance 'market' in the UK is indeed not as extensive as elsewhere, as Healey implies, but it is quite lucrative in the USA. I don't know about Germany. It's also big in India. Generally, Europeans are quite reserved with this kind of stuff.

From my experience, a 'freelancer' (or, better put, an 'independent contractor' or 'contract firm') may be sought in the following situations:

• the researcher does not want to collaborate with other internal or external groups for whatever sensitive reasons pertaining to their research
• working with an independent freelancer/contractor or contract firm proves a more economical option than going with an internal bioinfomatics core
• the researcher does not actually know anyone who can do the analysis, so, they look externally
• the researcher doubts the experience/expertise of the internal/external collaborators already providing services
• the one seeking services is a start-up who cannot afford to hire full-time

[Joe]

Agreed with Kevin that you might have more luck with start-ups, but again, those that usually have bioinformatics requirements are typically paying for them at the same time that they might outsource the data generation (for example, you would probably pay to get some sequencing done, and in with the work package might be some at least preliminary data analysis such as genome assembly).

[BioITFreelancer]

Hi Everybody,

many thanks for sharing your thoughts about bioinformatics freelancing and pointing out the current restrictions and limitations, hindering academia from outsourcing their bioinformatics tasks!

Kind regards, BioItFreelancer

Answer 1

[GenoMax]

You could register yourself as a provider at AllSeq and GenoHub (look for become a provider link). [Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with either site, just providing pointers].

There was a recent mention of this site: A: Do I Have A Chance To Hire A Bioinformatics Freelancer?.

Echoing @igor's comment, you would need to get registered as a vendor (with each place) to be officially paid from US organizations (which may require a tax ID, filing annual US returns down the road etc) which may not be worth the hassle for a single person. You may also need to sign business associate agreements for data privacy/handling/access (since you would not be part of institutions) which would add legal overheads.

[Kevin Blighe]

Yes, there can be a lot of paperwork and one has to navigate the different tax treaties / agreements if going with a foreign-based contractor. Once a good relationship is built, though, the rewards can be mutually beneficial for both parties in the long term, and 'word of mouth' is also a big thing in the World of freelancing.

[igor]

You could register yourself as a provider at AllSeq and GenoHub

Those are good resources. There are a few others that I can't recall now.

The big question is: does anyone actually get any leads from those places? I personally haven't heard of anyone purchasing or selling bioinformatic services that way, but I also do not know many people so that is a small sample size. However, I noticed none of them offer any feedback/reviews/ratings. That would be an obvious feature to have. Other (non-bioinformatic) job marketplaces like Upwork or Fiverr offer that. I suspect the reason is insufficient activity (you can't have feedback/reviews/ratings if there no one to give it).