As federal funding for research becomes less certain, University of Minnesota faculty and staff are increasingly forming partnerships with business and industry to move their research forward. In exchange, partnering companies benefit from researchers’ world-class expertise, along with the U’s cutting-edge research infrastructure.
The University offers a set of time-saving research agreements to help faculty and staff in starting new partnerships with industry. These agreements include considerations such as how to manage the data gathered through research, how to publish the results and how to handle any resulting intellectual property.
Researchers are encouraged to use the resources below to speed up the contract process and leave more time for actual research.
Types of Research Agreements
Master research agreements
Companies that frequently sponsor University research may form a master research agreement that applies to all research activities they support. There are more than 40 industry sponsors that currently have master agreements in place at the University.
MN-IP Create sponsored research agreement
Part of the Minnesota Innovation Partnerships program, MN-IP Create makes it easier for companies to sponsor research at the University. The agreement streamlines negotiations and offers industry-friendly intellectual property and licensing terms.
National agreements
The University has adopted several national agreements, allowing companies and researchers to agree to pre-established terms and conditions without further negotiation.
- Accelerated Clinical Trial Agreement: Establishes the roles of researchers and industry partners who collaborate on clinical trials by outlining terms such as how funding and intellectual property will be handled.
- Accelerated Confidential Disclosure Agreement: Dictates which information involved in or resulting from the research process the University and industry partners must refrain from discussing publicly.
- Accelerated Material Transfer Agreement: Transfers tangible materials, such as chemical compounds or software, between the University and other institutions or companies for the recipient to use in research.
- Uniform Biological Material Transfer Agreement: Transfers both patented and unpatented biological materials, such as cell lines, plasmids and reagents, between the University and other institutions or companies for the recipient to use in research.
Reliance agreements
These agreements allow multi-site studies funded by or partnering with industry to rely on an institutional review board at a different university. Similar agreements allow industry-sponsored studies to use one or more commercial IRBs. Available summer-fall 2016.
Template agreements
Templates allow potential industry partners to build agreements based on established terms that the University will accept. These agreements have already received approval from the Sponsored Projects Administration and the Office of the General Counsel.