Research or Consultancy

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 the Research Innovation and Development Office ['RIDO']. Click here to go back to the main Commercial Research and Consultancy Services page.

If after reading these guidelines you are unsure as to whether or not your project should be categorised as research, do please contact Marc Shannon, Business Development Manager (x6506). If necessary you can download the relevant form, and forward it to Marc.

• What is Research?
• Types of Research Activity
• DEST, Data Collection and Research
• Types of Externally Funded Research

Consultancy

Consultancy occurs where:

• the project involves buying the skills and expertise (pre-existing know how) of university staff and equipment to work on a specified project; and
• the sponsor would expect to own the intellectual property (advice) arising from the paid consultancy and would also expect complete confidentiality on the part of the university.

Consultancy Activities

In addition to non-research activities, the following would generally be regarded as consultancy activities:

• education and training courses e.g. teaching and training students using established methods and subject knowledge (note that the development of new teaching methods is regarded as R & D);
• marketing and market studies i.e. market research and opinion polls;
• the search for minerals using existing methods;
• trial production and copying of prototypes (note that the design, construction and testing of prototypes generally falls within R & D);
• interpretative commentary using existing data;
• forecasting;
• operations research as a contribution to decision making; and
• the use of standard techniques in applied psychology to classify or diagnose human characteristics.

If you have any queries regarding the content of the policy, or any of the matters noted above, contact Marc Shannon, Business Development Manager (x 6506).