Innovation & Technology Transfer Office

It is part of NTU’s mission to take a lead in research in areas relevant to industry and business. Collaborations with industry is encouraged as both industry and NTU will benefit from such interactions. Industry obtains access to NTU’s expertise, facilities and resources while working with industry ensures that research at NTU remains relevant.

Riding on the principle of mutual benefit for both industry and NTU, NTU cooperates with industry as strategic partners in various R&D areas to develop new technologies, applications or products to achieve both parties’ objectives.

There are 2 main arrangements for NTU-industry research collaborations or projects. Industry may work with NTU either by way of jointly undertaking research with NTU or engaging NTU’s research expertise to undertake the research project.

Below is further information on research collaborations with NTU:

1. Policy on IP Ownership and Commercial Use and Licensing of Project IP
2. Exploring Research Opportunities with NTU
3. Finalising the Research Agreement with NTU
4. Overhead Charge

For queries on research collaborations with NTU, please contact:

1. Policy on IP Ownership and Commercial Use and Licensing of Project IP

If a company sponsors research at NTU, NTU’s usual position is that it will retain ownership of all Intellectual Property (IP) that it develops or creates. The company will have a first right to obtain either a non-exclusive or exclusive fee-based licence to use the resulting IP commercially. Such licence will be negotiated on commercial terms. An exclusive licence may not however be available if a key platform technology is involved.

NTU does consider joint ownership of the resulting IP if the company will be contributing its background IP to the project and will also be involved in creating or developing the IP together with NTU researchers. The company must also be contributing significantly to the total project costs. In this case, the company will have a non-exclusive royalty-free right to commercially exploit the resulting IP but will be required to account to NTU a percentage of any licensing revenue it receives should it license the resulting IP to third parties. The company will also have the first right to negotiate a royalty-bearing licence to exclusively commercialise the resulting IP. 

NTU does consider sole ownership of IP by the company but only on a case-by-case basis and if the following criteria is first met:

• The project is focused mainly on product development or improvements to the company’s existing products or services.
• The project has unambiguous known objectives and the company lays down a defined way of performing the study.
• Only the company’s background IP is involved. The project does not require the use of any existing NTU IP but only the expertise and know-how of NTU’s researchers.

The company will also be required to bear the full cost of the project to be carried out at NTU. The company’s ownership of resulting IP will however be limited to the company’s stated field of application.

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2.   Exploring Research Opportunities with NTU

Information on the various research activities at NTU can be found at the Research main page on NTU’s website. 

If there is a particular area of research of interest to your company, you may approach the NTU staff or School directly to explore the possibility of collaborating together on a research project.

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3.   Finalising the Research Agreement with NTU

Research at NTU is driven by the NTU faculty member who will be the principle investigator (PI) of the project. The scope of the project in terms of the work to be carried out and the deliverables, and the resources and funding required, will need to be discussed and finalised with the PI. The research proposal will then need to be approved by the School.

The ITTO is responsible for negotiating and finalising the IP and legal terms of the research agreement. The ITTO has standard Research Agreement templates for the different IP ownership positions possible under NTU’s IP Policy. The ITTO can be consulted as to which template agreement would be appropriate for the research project. 

Once the IP and other legal terms are finalised, the research agreement will be signed between the School and the company.

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4.   Overhead Charge

A 20% overhead charge applies to all research projects to take into account the overhead costs in providing the facilities and resources to carry out the research at NTU. The overhead charge will apply to all direct cash funding from the company.

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Technologies Available for Licensing | Research Collaborations with NTU

Innovation Centre Block 1, Unit 213, 16 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637722

Tel: (65) 6790-4954, Fax: (65) 6792-1737