Best Practices in Inter-Institutional Agreements – Can We Do Better?
Join us at the AUTM 2015 Eastern Region Meeting and add to our discussions! We want to hear from you.
Do you agree that IIAs are often hard to negotiate, time consuming, and can be often the subject of heated arguments? Do you think we should and could do better?
I’ll be co-hosting a morning session dedicated to Inter-institutional Agreements (IIAs) at the AUTM 2015 Eastern Region Meeting in Raleigh on Tuesday, September 1, 2015. Joining me will be Kelly Sexton from NCSU and Alan Bentley from Vanderbilt.
We’ll be drawing on our collective experience in drafting and negotiating IIAs, as well as on a study undertaken by Vanderbilt, to explore common issues experienced by the majority of institutions, as a preamble to suggesting some possible universal best practices models for our profession.
As inter-institutional research programs become central to funding agencies, especially in applied research, commonly-owned intellectual property is more likely to be developed and frequency at which IIAs are needed is likely to increase. Also, since IP Management Plans are required as part of these programs as conditions for release of funding, the need for the expeditious agreement among the parties of possible IIA terms is a pressing demand on TTOs even before joint inventions are developed.
Particular emphasis will be placed on often contentious topics such as charging management fees (what is realistic?), and determining inventive contribution and the challenges when more than two institutions are involved. This topic will be of interest to both licensing and agreements managers.
Please join us in Raleigh for this and other outstanding workshops! We would love to hear your opinions on this topic! Remember to register by July 7th for the lowest registration fee!