University Research Agreement
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Download our University Research Agreement template in Word format. This document is located in the Intellectual Property chapter of Edilex's catalogue of Contract Templates.
Introduction
In industrialized countries, more and more research is performed in academic environments. The reasons that contribute to the growth of this activity within universities can be explained by simple convergence of interest.
On the academic side, there is a willingness and ability to be active in this area because of the prestige that this activity can bring to an university and because of the numerous human and material resources available on the various university campuses. However, these two elements are not sufficient to help science progress if the university does not have the financial means to cover the cost of the work leading to the production of results, hence the importance of forging links with private sector for this purpose.
On the private sector’s side, few businesses have the ability to perform research and development activities. Although businesses are highly interested in engaging in such activities, the costs and time associated with such are often prohibitive, hence the interest in an alliance with the academic sector, which has, because of its academic mission , the necessary means to support such infrastructure and constraints.
The relationship formed between universities and the private sector generally takes the form of a university research agreement pursuant to which the university undertakes toward the business which finances the work to pursue a research project or convert it into more applied research and to share the fruit of this work according to a sharing formula which suits both parties.
The following document provides the legal, financial and commercial framework governing the relationship between an university and a business.
Description
The University Research Agreement is the legal instrument by which a university involved in a research and development project, establishes a relationship with a private firm in order to finance part of the work to be done, by accepting to later assign to the latter the rights to the exploitation of the results of the project for which the company is providing financial support.
Use
We recommend the use of this document when a university research project with strong commercial potential requires external funding to perform the related works. It is a funding agreement disguised as a service agreement and bearing similarities to a license. Since universities often do not have sufficient funds to cover the costs of such research, many promising projects resulting from the work of professors or students are put on hold due to lack of adequate funding to validate the commercial potential of their research.
University researchers, who want to help scientific progress but have exhausted other funding sources must often seek funding from a private business. This funding will not be granted unless there is a visible benefit for the private firm, who will only agree to supply such financial support if there is a clear expectative of future profit resulting from such research. The difference between this agreement and the R&D Service Agreement (document H01.500 of the Business Precedents) is that the service provider in this case is an university instead of a private research center.
