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N. 35, September - October 2007
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 | IP & RTD: Articles
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IPR management related to research training and mobility of
scientists
Shabtay Dover, Ph.D., Director
Authority for the Community and Youth
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Most people associated with big business or who have a brand name to
protect are aware of IPR protecting strategies. However, IPR management is not
yet a main issue in academia. Most consortia in FP6 failed to deal with this
issue properly in all phases of the project.
In FP7, it is mandatory to demonstrate in detail how the IPR will be
dealt with by the consortium during the planning, execution and exploitation
stages. The consortium must describe who is responsible for the IPR management
and which rights all partners will have. To avoid misunderstanding, it is
important to make clear the rights and obligations of all partners to IPR. All
partners have to ensure that the inventions are owned by the participating
institutes and not by the inventors. The consortium has to decide and describe
how the results will be exploited. That is all fine as long as the mechanism
detailed in the proposal submitted is fully accepted by the institutes that
employ the individual researchers involved in the preparation of the proposal.
After all, the institutes are the real partners which own the foreground
knowledge created by the consortium.
The rights and the obligations of "natural persons" working within,
or who have been partner of, the consortium must be defined as well. A "natural
person" who has a legal personality under Community law is considered a "legal
entity" and can be involved in knowledge creation and transfer. Therefore, the
rights and obligations of this person, who is not employed by any specific
institute but has been involved with the knowledge creation, must be defined at
a very early stage.
A new program was established in the EU FP7, the People Program,
which aims to create more opportunities for research training and mobility for
European scientists. The People Program continues many of the very successful
Marie Curie schemes under FP6 and complements them under FP7 by some
interesting new schemes. About half of these schemes offer support to natural
persons, who are entitled to be funded by under EU regulations, but who are not
employed by any institute that has been supported by the EU.
There are some Marie Curie Fellowship schemes that encourage the
recruitment of natural persons to spend a few months or years at research
universities or institutes, or in the framework of consortia or networks funded
by the EU Framework Programs.
One of these schemes, ITN (Marie Curie Initial Training Networks),
intends to offer initial training to researchers in the first five years of
their career to improve their research and complementary skills and enhance
their career prospects in both the public and private sectors. The Community
aim is to support the training of young fellows in the best research
universities and institutes of Europe (and associated countries) grouped in
"training networks" (international in nature). In addition to the personal
fellowships the young fellows get, the Community also supports joint research
projects involving research staff of the host institutes and the external
researchers (the fellows).
Another scheme, IEF (Intra-European Fellowships for Career
Development), aims to support experienced researchers at various stages of
their career so they can acquire new research skills or undertake an
interdisciplinary experience. Funding offered by the Community covers
trans-national mobility, a monthly allowance and a contribution to
research-related costs.
A new Marie Curie Action, ERG (European Reintegration Grants),
provides financial assistance to researchers who have concluded their training
within a Marie Curie Action under the 6th or the 7th Framework Program, and who
are looking for long-term employment in research (in Europe or associated
countries).
A program specifically intended to support trans-national mobility
is COFUND (Co-Funding of Regional, National and International Programs). Its
aim is to encourage existing or new regional and national programs to be open
to the trans-national mobility of scientists. The Community contribution
consists of co-funding a fixed percentage of 40% of the full fellowship costs
for eligible researchers.
The goal of the above-mentioned schemes (and others) is to provide
the best research training for the fellows and to expose them to cutting edge
science by integrating them temporarily into the leading research teams of the
host institutions.
Thus, all fellows are exposed to the host institute’s
background and foreground knowledge, some of which is not yet protected. The
nature of academic career building is based on successive stages (Ph.D.
studies, post-doctoral training, sabbaticals, etc.), which traditionally are
based on trans-institutional and/or trans-national mobility.
In many cases, this flux of research fellows creates the legal
challenge of protecting the host institute’s intellectual property. Some
host institutes try to avoid leakage of unprotected knowledge by asking the
fellows to sign a confidentiality agreement, or non-disclosure agreement, to
ensure that none of the knowledge the fellow is exposed to in the framework of
his training period will be used by the fellow outside that institute and that
period.
Beside the need to regulate the rights of the IP created during the
research training of scientists in their different stages of scientific career
development, a similar need to regulate IP rights arises from the movement of
scientists from one institute to another.
The shift toward a knowledge-based economy has placed human capital
in science and technology at the forefront of the demand for sophisticated,
skilled manpower. The global demand for talent is increasingly competitive
because of science and innovation systems expansion. Highly skilled people are
now highly mobile. Many countries, including the EU, are implementing policy
measures to attract foreign researchers. Thus, the competition for more skilled
researchers is increasing. An adequate flow of competent researchers –
with high levels of mobility between institutes, disciplines, sectors and
countries – becomes a central goal of the European Research Area
policy.
In most cases, after moving to a new institute, the scientists feel
free to continue their own research projects, which have been started at their
former institutes (quoting their academic freedom rights, rightfully or not).
In too many cases, the movement of scientists to new places has not been
regulated and IPR transfer or licensing between the institutes was not
negotiated. In such a case, the accepting institute (which successfully
recruited the scientist) always gains, while the old institute (which lost the
scientist) always looses. If sport clubs are entitled to settle their rights
ahead of a champion’s transfer, why can’t universities and
research institutes do the same?
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