Guidance

Decision guide

Published 6 October 2016

© Crown copyright 2016

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/university-and-business-collaboration-agreements-decision-guide/decision-guide

Overview

The decision guide has been prepared to indicate the sort of issues that a person practised in negotiating research collaborations will often take into account. Answering the questions should help you to determine which one of the 7 Lambert research collaboration agreements is best suited to your needs in a particular set of circumstances.

This decision guide is not the only means of deciding what the terms of a research collaboration agreement should be and, having reached a conclusion using the guide, you should review whether the Lambert research collaboration agreement selected really reflects your position.

The decision guide has been structured as a series of questions to help identify:

  • whether the Project is Contract Research and should be channelled through a subsidiary company
  • the relative importance of the Results to the Collaborator and the Project’s reliance on the Collaborator’s Background
  • the importance of Academic and Research use and Academic Publication to the Institution and its researchers
  • the importance of the Project to future research at the Institution

By combining the responses to these questions, it is possible to identify which of the two party collaboration agreements may be the most appropriate starting point.

If the Project is of critical importance to the Collaborator, and cannot take place without using the Collaborator’s Background, collaboration agreement 4 or 5 may be the most appropriate.

If it is important for the Institution to own the IPR, collaboration agreements 1-3 will be most appropriate.

Where Academic Publication would have a serious impact on the competitive position of the Collaborator and the Collaborator wishes to ensure that Publication does not take place, collaboration agreement 5 will be most appropriate.

In this way the decision guide provides a starting point for negotiation based on the situation of the Institution and the Collaborator, rather than focusing on ownership of any IPR per se.

The decision guide is for use with the two party collaboration agreements. There is no decision guide for the multi-party consortium agreements because there are too many possible permutations.

You may also find that there are other considerations (not mentioned in the guide) that, because of your circumstances, you may wish to take into account. The terminology in the guide reflects that used in the model research collaboration agreements. Please click on any underlined term to read its definition.

More information on the model research collaboration agreements can be found in the guidance notes.

Online decision guide

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