Contract or Commercial Research and Consultancy Services

The Commercial Research and Consultancy Services Policy can be accessed here, as a PDF file. It is recommended that staff intending to conduct any such service become familiar with the Policy and direct any queries to Research Services.

[Note that private work conducted by staff independently of the University is governed by the Statement on Staff External Activities, which is administered through the Registrar's Office.]

Following are some notes on some of the most important features of the commercial research or consultancy process:

• Application Cover Sheet

Staff must complete an Application Cover Sheet before any formal arrangements between JCU and the client can be processed through Research Services.

• Research v Consultancy

Projects are classified into research and consultancies for the purposes of DEST data collection - the former were previously counted towards Institutional Grants Scheme funding, and are still reported to DEST (post implementation of the RQF).

[To help you with the distinction, there is a further page which includes the definitions used by DEST.]

• Early Contact with the Client - IP and Price

Staff usually make the first contacts with the client or funding partner themselves, and only later involve Research Services in finalising the agreement between the parties. There are three things in particular that you must keep in mind at this stage - note that in many instances Research Services should be brought into the picture at the earliest opportunity:

• Any written communications with a client should contain a disclaimer (that it is not legally binding);


• Any negotiations on potentially valuable intellectual property - ie. with commercial potential or with the potential to be used in further research - should be conducted with care and through Research Services (refer parts 6 & 7 of the Policy),


• note that negotiations may need to be conducted under a non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement;


• Project pricing must be in accordance with JCU requirements (refer parts 8 & 9 of the Policy), and any proposal that involves:


• pricing at less than full cost recovery (including all staff costs), or


• a waiver of overheads,

must get approval from the PVC (Research & Innnovation) prior to coming to any agreement on terms with the client - approval will not be given after the event. JCU is obliged to price fairly and competitively in the market - and that means covering all the associated costs with a project.

Note though part 10 of the Policy - not all staff costs need actually be paid out of project income.

You can link here to an Overheads and Pricing page, where overheads budgeting and waivers are covered in more detail, along with some notes on pricing for commercial projects and the daily charge-out rates.

Do not undervalue your research.

(You can also link to some information on GST and research projects.)

• Student Involvement

If the primary purpose of the project is to fund a research student stipend, or if students are likely to be involved in the generation of any intellectual property (it may only be a report), particular care must be taken with negotiating terms and conditions, which may tie up rights to publish (or in the worst case to have a thesis examined).

Remember: students who are not employees of JCU are not bound by an agreement between JCU and a client, and a separate agreement between JCU and the student is required to ensure compliance (and recognition of rights and obligations).

It is preferable that if there is likely to be student involvement, that you contact Research Services as early as possible in the process.

• Written Agreements

The client may present you with a contract - if so, you must refer it to Research Services at the earliest draft stage. It is not unusual for the other party to not recognise the interests of researchers in their intellectual property provisions or to require warranties or indemnities that JCU is unable to give.

Alternatively JCU's Legal Officer, Jim Campbell(x5238), will draft the contract. If so you should contact hiim at the earliest possible opportunity, to ensure that the expectations of both researcher and client can be met or compromised, and without unrealistic expectations becoming entrenched.

Signing-off of contracts must be in accord with Council's Delegations. Heads of School currently have the delegated authority to sign-off on contracts with a total value of under $50,000 - but only after the contract has been vetted by Research Services.

Once the agreement has been signed by JCU and the client, an original copy should end up with RIDO (and the other with the client). A copy is then sent to the Grants Finance Section of Financial and Business Services for account opening. Invoicing is coordinated between the School and FaBS.

---

If you have any queries regarding the content of the Policy, or any of the matters noted above, contact Jasper Taylor, Director Research Services (x 4422) or Jim Campbell, Research Legal Officer (x 5238).