Ways of working together

Service agreement

A service agreement allows technology partners and laboratories to share, with the company or partner, their knowledge, skills, and technical and experimental resources for a fee. This type of agreement is useful for a company looking to obtain a specific, determined result.
Its distinctive features are:

• The laboratory is under an obligation to achieve results independently,
• Inventions are not involved, which means there should be no results that are likely to be protected by intellectual property rights (patent, software, etc.),
• The company is the sole owner of the results. The laboratory’s knowledge used to obtain the results is not transferred, however.

Partnership agreement

A research partnership is the most common form of partnership. It is an agreement as part of which two or more partners carry out a research project together and both contribute to it (intellectual, material or financial contribution). Such agreements are useful when the goal of both parties is to carry out a new study, involving invention and/or innovation, with a view to achieving new, enriching results that are shared equally.
Its distinctive features are:

• The laboratory is under an obligation to use its best endeavours, which means that it must use any means and resources it has to carry out the study but does not guarantee that the findings will be scientifically relevant,
• One or more partners may take inventive steps, and any innovative results may or may not be protected by intellectual property rights,
• The parties are co-owners of the results,
• Each partner helps to fund the study by providing resources and/or by contributing financially.

Springboard agreement

A preliminary agreement protocol, also called a springboard agreement, confirms the parties’ interest in working together and their intention of concluding a short- or long-term framework agreement (usually a joint laboratory, i.e. LabCom).
Apart from confirming the intention of working together and identifying common themes of interest, a springboard agreement commits the partners to organising meetings between experts in order to bring about new projects that will turn the LabCom into a reality.
The University of Bordeaux helps to coordinate organising such meetings and establishing the conditions of the partnership together with the relevant departments, affiliates and institutions supervising the laboratories in question.

The ‘multidimensional’ framework agreement

This type of agreement creates a structural cooperation between the University and a partner.
Concluded for over four years, such an agreement calls for the parties to create a multidimensional action plan together. This means that the action plan can be multidisciplinary (e.g. joint research projects on chemistry and new materials, sociology research projects on the acceptability of new technologies, studies on business sectors and new products) or transversal (drawing on the University’s skills in training, research and innovation).
A multidimensional framework agreement ideally establishes the partnership’s general conditions (funding, intellectual property, communication, etc.) in order to make it easier to conclude agreements relating to future partnerships to establish governance over the institutions, allowing for a shared strategy to be validated.
The University of Bordeaux offers tailored support as a way of coordinating and monitoring partnerships.

CIFRE thesis agreement

CIFRE (Convention Industrielle de Formation par la REcherche, Industrial Agreement on Training Through Research) is a research partnership agreement between a business and an academic laboratory. Thesis funding from the Ministry of Higher Education and Research is an integral part of the agreement and it makes it possible to subsidise any company that hires a PhD student to carry out a research project.
The goal of a CIFRE thesis agreement is to help develop research partnerships between private and public entities and to place PhD students under regular employment conditions.

The agreement is based on a partnership of four players:

• The company recruits a PhD student with a Master’s degree on a fixed-term or open-ended contract to carry out a research project. The annual salary must be at least €23,484 gross. The work carried out must be linked to the PhD student-employee’s thesis,
• The academic research laboratory oversees the work of the PhD student-employee and the latter must be enrolled at the university with which the laboratory is affiliated,
• The PhD student must allocate all their time, shared between the company and the academic laboratory, to their research project. The training received is therefore two-fold in nature, namely both academic and professional,
• The ANRT (National Association of Research and Technology) signs a CIFRE thesis agreement with the company on the basis of an annual subsidy of €14,000 paid to the company. Research tax credit (CIR) can be included.

Co-maturation agreement

This type of agreement allows companies wishing to use technology developed at one of the University’s laboratories to limit any financial or technical risks by working on the last stages of the technology together (prototypes, pre-production models, demonstrators, etc.) and thereby to transform the research idea into an industry-ready product. The company, the laboratory where the innovation originates and SATT Aquitaine Science Transfert (the University’s knowledge transfer affiliate) together draw up the technical specifications, sign a co-maturation agreement and decide on a licence option. At the end of the development process, the option may be exercised in the event of success.

Other types of agreement

Consortium agreement, material transfer agreement, confidentiality agreement, etc. Many types of agreements exist, each tailored to specific circumstances. The departments of the University of Bordeaux or its knowledge transfer affiliate are available to help businesses and laboratories set up the easiest and most effective agreement for the partnership.