www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu

Researchers’ Consulting Activities

FITT

(Fostering Interregional Exchange in ICT Technology Transfer)

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Researchers’ Consulting Activities in general

Researchers have competences in some domain, which allows them to perform consulting

activities on demand of industrial companies

This can be an additional source of revenue for researcher and of scientific expertise for

the company

These activities can generate intellectual property, which risk to stay out of control of a TT

office

They can also give birth to interesting projects and partnerships for the research

organisation which employs the researcher

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Researchers’ Consulting Activities in practice

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Evidence report

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Measures taken by INRIA

Researchers being civil servants, they ask authorisation to perform extra activity

They fill in a form which gives details about consulting agreement negotiated with a

company

Researcher’s responsible give opinion on:

compatibility of this extra activity with main activities of the PRO (research director)

researcher’s engagement in consulting being only his secondary activity (human resources)

risk of conflict of interests (TT officer)

opinion of regional centre director, optionally opinion of Transfer and Innovation

Department

final authorisation is given by INRIA’s CEO

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Involvement of TT officer in every request for authorisation of consulting allows to:

Measures taken by INRIA

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When?

Timing

The new legislation on civil servants extra activity (giving some precise regulation of working time and salary) appeared in July 2007

The question was raised in INRIA in September 2008

The new procedure was put in place in October 2008

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Who?

Stakeholders

INRIA headquarters, in particular Transfer and Innovation Department – set up the new policy, follow-up some part of requests

INRIA regional centres: TT officers, research and administrative directors, human resources – evaluate researcher’s requests, try to detect transfer potential or possible risks behind this activity

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Pros & Cons

PRO’s

Building researchers awareness of IP protection issues and of the consequences they have for their work as consultants

Clear rules are set up concerning researcher’s financial benefits, amount of time dedicated to consulting and potential use of INRIA software and other IP (guidelines for researchers)

Possibility to have a view on researchers’ contacts with companies; TT officers stay in the loop

Researchers can still provide private consultancy, which brings them financial benefits and meets the needs of SMEs

CON’s

The necessity to make this new process understandable for researchers, who can have the impression that “everything is becoming bureaucratic”

The validation procedure should not be too long and complicated, which would discourage researchers (in INRIA: 15 days to give an answer)

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Why ?

Rationale:

Researchers at PROs are an important source of expertise for the private sector; INRIA’s mission includes sharing these competencies, SMEs being the privileged partners

Some cases showed that:

Consulting may involve transfer, which is not taken into account by researchers when they negotiate contract on their own

Researchers’ personal contacts with industry can be interesting for INRIA TT office, if only there is an information flow

Consulting services are sometimes an occasion to bring the company closer to INRIA and to initiate a collaboration

There was a need for a procedure which allows to manage all those aspects of consulting

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Why ?

Impact:

The number and the nature of actors involved in authorisation procedure guarantee a thorough examination of each case

Researchers become more conscious of limits and opportunities of the activity they engage in and pay more attention to INRIA IPR; if a problem arise it can be solved together with TT office

A way to avoid the situation when an effective transfer is done by researcher as a consultant and the TT office, as well as the management, learn about it post factum

TT office gets a mean to seize the opportunities of partnerships that arise from contacts with companies

The benefits of all the parties (researcher, company, INRIA) should be preserved in an optimal way

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Outcome

The process has been formalised and implemented in INRIA activities; every

contract concerning researcher’s consulting services for company or other

organisation passes through TTO and is examined before being signed

Effective follow-up

No negative feedback from researchers

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Lessons Learned

Looking back now, what would you …

... do different? – The practice seems to be on the right track

... improve? – There is an ongoing reflection towards facilitating the consulting activities, especially for SMEs, usage of a specific structure, know-how transfer contract with INRIA and other mechanisms in addition to the consultancy provided by researchers

… recommend to others? – Setting up a process to follow-up consulting activities is worth some efforts, as it increases both researchers awareness and opportunities detection

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Suggested Readings

Link to bibliography

Links to code book

Consultancy

Know-how

Confidential information

Confidentiality

Intellectual property

Intellectual property protection

Link to relevant websites

www.inria.fr