The importance of formal collaboration agreements is that they force the participants at the outset to identify their own interests, rights and responsibilities, and to recognise those of others within the project, and to codify these within a legally binding document which can be consulted during and after the project's lifetime. An important, if not central part of these agreements deals with the allocation and utilisation of IPRs.

It is often suggested that agencies produce standard agreements (or a set of templates of agreements) in order to clarify the issues and to protect SMEs involved in programmes of collaborative research. These can be helpful, but should aim at a simplicity covering key issues. Any attempt to cover every possible contingency will result in over-complexity and often internal contradictions.

Agencies supporting a range of CRC-models will find it difficult to cover all these possibilities with a single model consortium agreement. The best that can be done is to identify and explain the issues that must be considered by participants in negotiating agreements and publicise these, especially the IPR aspects.

In determining the collaboration strategy, partners should realise that they can access a greater range of knowledge if they are willing to be flexible on ownership. CRCs should try to organise collaborations on the basis of maintaining full or partial ownership over the results with the maximum spill-over effects for all participants that provide a significant contribution to the project.

It is crucial for CRCs to have enough critical mass and background information in order to have enough appeal to the market. As important is the notion of re-usability of jointly established new foreground information, together with the industrial partners. If the Centre owns the IP and releases it to partner companies at a fair market rate determined through an independent process, the issue of State Aids does not arise as there is no distortion of the market.

Re-usability of foreground information is essential for the centre as to be able to carry out further research in the future in the same generic fields and to keep its own independence.

In general, each participant will wish to protect its own rights to own or use foreground results, and also to restrict any use of foreground by others which could be used against its own interests. 

The foreground generated by projects will be in a variety of forms, and so should be the exploitation. Universities and CRCs may have spin-off companies to exploit directly, used patenting and licensing, undertake contract research, and may receive sponsored chairs, new laboratories, buildings, equipment or software, etc. Long term relationships are frequently built up between companies and individuals or departments, and these prove the most successful in generating benefits for all parties. Therefore the intellectual property issues raised by collaborative research should be viewed in a broader context, considering more than just the immediate possibilities of patenting, licensing and contract fees.

Collaborative research in CRCs is growing in importance in Europe. Its success depends upon the existence of a set of IPR rules ensuring both that economic returns are available to participants and that there is reasonable access for third parties to the knowledge generated. Such rules should facilitate trade between the various participants in research and must be designed in the context of an overall system taking account of all interests.