COHRED Publishes Guidance For Negotiating Fair Research Contracts, Including IPRs

The Geneva-based Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED) recently published a “guidance resource for the negotiation of fair research contracts in collaborative research partnerships.” The guide includes several basic considerations on intellectual property rights for contract negotiators.

Surveys of research institutions in the African and Asian regions revealed significant gaps in contracting and contract management of low- and middle-income country (LMIC) institutions, COHRED said.

“Many institutions had not previously considered research contracting to be a legal issue and reported having no specialist legal expertise, with the result that contractual terms and conditions were often poorly understood,” it said in a release. “Without adequate legal capacity, contract negotiations can lead to agreements which disadvantage the LMIC partner.”

“Better contract negotiation expertise in LMIC institutions will help improve the distribution of benefits of collaborative research, such as overhead costs, data ownership, institutional capacity in research management, technology transfer, and intellectual property rights,” COHRED said.

The substantive chapter on intellectual property rights spells out basic considerations to help ensure a mutually beneficial outcome. Considerations include: the nature and purpose of the research; interests of all parties, including conflicts; existence of IP laws, international norms, national legislative and institutional IP policy; ownership of IP; disclosure of IP; rights and responsibilities pertaining to IP; management of IP; cost implications of implementing IP; and public benefit.

It describes the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), including its flexiblities for small economies, as well as IP related to technology transfer and benefit-sharing (both monetary and non-monetary).

Other issues addressed in-depth in the guide include: ownership and sharing of data and samples; capacity building and technology transfer; compensation for indirect costs; and research contracts in legislative context (such as when there is an absence of legal contracting framework). It further provides a repository of policies and templates.

The document, entitled, “Where there is no Lawyer: Guidance for fairer contract negotiation in collaborative research partnerships,” is available here or here [pdf].