Working with corporations – Corporate & Foundation Relations

Corporate relations team

The 91探花鈥檚 corporate relations team can help you build fruitful relationships with companies. Working with industry is quite different from working with foundations or federal funding agencies. Our team can answer questions, introduce you to companies and help you structure your partnerships with companies. In addition, you can reference the document on to help guide you in working with industry.

Why聽work with companies?

There are many reasons why working with companies can be beneficial to you and your research program. By working with companies, you can:

Diversify your funding sources.
Stay connected with real-world problems that industry is facing.
Build partnerships that can be invaluable when competing for large federal grant opportunities.
Create products and services that benefit society by working with companies to commercialize inventions from your lab.
Give students who work on company-sponsored programs valuable experience and career opportunities.
Earn licensing income from companies who want to license inventions from the projects they sponsor.

How companies engage with universities

Companies work with universities to advance their R&D efforts, tap student talent and engage experts to help them achieve their goals. The diagram below illustrates the main ways companies engage around students, research, services and philanthropy. Our team can help 91探花researchers and companies decide which pathways are appropriate for each partnership and work with the researcher, the company and other 91探花Advancement colleagues to guide engagement strategies.

1) Connecting with Student Talent 2) Advancing Research Interests 3) Upskilling & Training Employees 4) Exploring Innovation, Startups & Technology Licensing 5) Building Brand Visibility 6) Accessing Facilities

Types of聽funding

Sponsored research programs: Company sponsors work directly with faculty to define custom projects. Each project requires a statement of work that describes the project scope, schedule, budget and how the work is divided if it will be a collaborative effort. This plan must be submitted via an eGC1 so that it is approved by the department chair and dean and then by the UW鈥檚 Office of Sponsored Programs. See the 91探花Corporate Engagement webpage and its sponsored project agreement process to learn more.
Gifts: Some companies support the 91探花through gifts to departments, labs and programs doing work that is of company interest. Our team will work with the company to document the gift. Since a gift is philanthropic, there are no contractual deliverables or intellectual property access.
In-kind donations: Companies may also provide gift support through in-kind donations of equipment or software or through below-market discounts on its products.

Challenges

There are distinct challenges to conducting company-funded research including:

Time: Corporate partners are often driven by near-term timelines and deliverables, which can make the terms of a project difficult to negotiate and meet.
Agreement: Negotiating contract agreements with companies can be complex, particularly establishing a statement of work and negotiating terms for intellectual property ownership, indemnification and publication rights.
Confidentiality: It is important not to divulge sensitive information to a company before a nondisclosure agreement is in place. Once sponsored research is conducted, companies often want to hold information confidential or delay its publication in order to secure a competitive advantage. Careful upfront negotiation may be needed to achieve both the company鈥檚 goals and the academic goal to disseminate knowledge.
Classified work: Corporations engaged in classified research may want to pass the secrecy and other obligations on to the UW. Careful contract negotiation and a classified or restricted work environment will be required.
Project length:聽Length of corporate projects should take into account the contract status and expected graduation dates of involved students. Companies often prefer to fund projects one year at a time.

NDAs and CDAs

Companies often want to put a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) or confidential disclosure agreement (CDA) in place ahead of in-depth discussions about a project opportunity. If you are presented with such an agreement, do not sign it yourself. Although the 91探花routinely completes such agreements with companies, only certain people at the 91探花are authorized to sign them. NDAs and CDAs for research project discussions are reviewed and signed by OSP; you should submit them for review with an eGC1. A corporate relations officer can work with OSP to get the agreement done.

It is usually best to have an initial meeting or two with the company before starting work on an NDA. You want to first assess that the company鈥檚 interests are a good fit for a project in your lab and that the company can work with 91探花policies on publications and intellectual property. Also note that entering into an NDA always carries the risk of 鈥渋ntellectual property contamination,鈥� where you learn something from the company that intersects with something you were thinking of doing but haven鈥檛 yet documented. In this case, the NDA could prevent you from exploring a new research area for several years.

Intellectual property and licensing

Intellectual property (IP) rights and ownership are important to consider for projects with commercial applications or non- 91探花partners. handles IP issues and faculty are strongly encouraged to disclose inventions to CoMotion and consult with them before discussing 91探花inventions or IP rights with anyone outside the UW.

In most cases, the 91探花retains ownership of inventions and discoveries that arise solely from UW-conducted research, whether patentable or not. Sponsors are routinely granted a first right to negotiate with the 91探花to obtain a fee-bearing exclusive or nonexclusive commercial license to project IP on commercially reasonable terms. Faculty are encouraged to consult with the corporate聽relations team, 听辞谤 the Office of Sponsored Programs before discussing IP or other contractual matters with companies to avoid misunderstandings. Faculty may direct companies to the聽Corporate Engagement website for basic information on what to expect when sponsoring research at the UW.

The Washington Innovation Advantage Program allows companies that sponsor research an opportunity to pay an additional up-front fee to fix financial terms for commercial rights to IP resulting from the project they fund. The UW, the faculty and the company must all opt into the program.