1. Research Partnership Managers
Skye Van de Vorst
Research Partnerships Manager
Faculty of Medicine
June 2019

2. The role of RPMs
Research Partnerships Managers (RPMs) are located within each of the University’s Faculties and Institutes.  
RPM’s role is to facilitate researchers’ engagement with industry and other external partners.
Contract negotiation and management
Support business development activities
Liaise with UQ commercialisation companies
Implementation of UQ policies relating to Intellectual Property and research budgets
One or more of us located in each faculty and institute of UQ
Our role is to facilitate researchers’ engagement with industry and other external research partners.
Most of my time is spent in contract negotiation and management. I liaise with the researchers and lawyers with UQ and with the external partners. Can be funding agreements, governance agreements with hospitals or simple confidentiality agreements or material transfer agreements.
We also support business development activities for UQ by engaging with people and companies interested in collaborating with UQ or asking UQ to perform contract research.
We liaise with UQ’s commercialisation companies such as UniQuest. We can also help researchers prepare budgets for contract research and help implement UQ’s IP policies.

3. Agreements with commercial clauses
Grant funding agreements
Intellectual property
Publications (restrictions)
Collaborative Research Agreements / Material Transfer Agreements
Confidentiality
Licenses governing use of materials and results
Ownership of results and IP, license to exploit
Publications
Publishing agreements with journals
Assignment of copyright
I spend 90% of my time on aiding negotiation of funding or collaborative research agreements and the two points that can take the longest to settle are around ownership of IP and the ability to publish.
These terms are seen in funding agreements and collaborative research agreements and MTAs, along with licences to IP. These licences can cover how you can use the IP during and after the term of the agreement. For example you may be able to continue to use the IP after the project has ended but only for internal, research purposes – this means you can’t use the IP for commercial purposes. Lots of MTAs have this clause and this also means you may not be able to use the material if your lab has commercial funding.
Research Agreements will often refer to Background IP and Project IP – for example one company owns a cell line you wish to modify – the cell line is their BIP but when we modify it it will be new Project IP – this could be owned by one or both parties.

4. Agreements with commercial clauses (cont.)
Governance agreements with Hospitals
Confidentiality & privacy
Licenses governing use of materials and results
Ownership of results and IP, licenses
Publications
Any time any patient data or samples is used for research we will need an agreement with the relevant hospital.
Templates with HHSs – BDHP – UQ, QUT, QIMR, MNHHS, MSHHS, CHQHHS and Mater

5. Intellectual property
The product of your mind or intellect
Intangible in nature
Exists in several different forms
IP can be bought and sold, rented (licensed) and destroyed
Provides a competitive advantage in the marketplace
IP Ownership
Governed by common law
Staff IP is owned by UQ and Student IP is owned by students
UQ’s IP policy
Intellectual Property Policy for Staff, Students and Visitors
What is intellectual property. Intellectual property (IP) is the property of your mind. It is a new idea you create. This can be an invention, trade mark, design, brand or even the application of your idea.
IP is often intangible in nature.
IP can be bought, sold, licenced and destroyed.
Applying for an IP right to protect your idea is critical to commercialisation and to the ability to develop a presence in a market.
Slide courtesy of FAK

6. Why is Intellectual Property Important
IP is a key term in research agreements, and affects our ability to do research
Access to patient samples / hospital facilities
Materials from collaborators
Conditions of funding agreements
Commercialisation of research cannot occur without IP
Commercialisation - Process of managing the transfer of research outcomes to broad market application
Pitfalls
Disclosure
Can invalidate patent claims - E.g. paper, abstract, poster, oral presentation or discussion with non-UQ scientists, website
Record keeping - Inventorship
The handling of IP in research agreements can affect your ability to do research. For examples – in material transfer agreements – you need access to something or samples that you need to perform your research and these samples are owned by another company or university. Could be cell lines, knock-out mice, blood samples. The other company will want to put an agreement in place to protect their IP so that you cannot go an commercialise and make money off their discoveries and hard work.
IP terms can also be present in Funding Agreements. Some funders will want a share of ownership of any IP developed throughout the project IP or they will want a share of any potential commercial returns.
Contract research can occur where a company external to UQ will pay for some research within UQ and they will wish to own the IP that comes out of the project. Sometimes they will give UQ a licence to use the results for research only, and they can allow for researchers to publish – after they have determined whether they need to protect this new IP.
Commercialisation is the process of managing the transfer of research outcomes to market and is performed by UQ’s commercialisation companies like UniQuest.
Commercialisation cannot occur with protection of IP. It is this protection that allows someone the ability to corner part of a market

7. Questions Faculty of Medicine RPM contacts
Jen Sodziak –
Sarah Flaim –
Debbie Bullock –
Sabine Sand –
Nyree Divitini – n.