How to decide

To help you decide which of the five Research Collaboration Agreements most closely reflects the circumstances of your project, you will find a Decision Guide. This will guide you through some of the principles and criteria that you may wish to take into account when deciding who should own and have rights to exploit the Results. You may find it helpful to consult this before using any of the Agreements.

In reality, Research Collaboration Agreements 2 and 3 may be combined so that the Sponsor has the right to negotiate an exclusive licence and/or an assignment. The outcome of negotiations could be, for instance, that the Sponsor takes an exclusive licence in one territory and an assignment of IP in a different territory.

There is no Decision Guide to help you to decide which of the three Consortium Agreements to use because there are too many possible permutations for multi-party research. You should use the Consortium Agreement that most closely fits the circumstances of your research project, bearing in mind that you may need to adapt it to meet the actual circumstances of your project.