Sponsored Research Agreement Guidelines

The Sponsored Research Agreement (SRA) expresses the terms under which the university ordinarily expects to conduct extramurally funded research with a private, for-profit sponsor. It is written to establish a fair and mutually beneficial relationship between the parties, consistent with state law and the policies of the University of Wisconsin System and UWM.

Among other things, the SRA addresses issues of intellectual property ownership, which many companies view as critical to their involvement with university-based researchers. The language in this draft agreement acknowledges the importance of the company's support for research by offering an option on new inventions. Researchers agree to assign inventions to the university's intellectual property management organization to allow the university to negotiate the agreement, to offer companies an option on new inventions, to negotiate licensing terms for future inventions, and to protect intellectual property that results from the agreement.

Research contract terms and conditions are negotiated by the UWM Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) in cooperation with the university's intellectual property management organization. If you are seeking funds from a private sponsor, you should notify RSA promptly to ensure that contract negotiations are completed in a timely manner. To initiate the process, please create a WISPER record, sign the record and route it for further signatures according to the WISPER instructions for your school or college. OTT will prepare a Standard Research Agreement and forward it to the sponsor. The provisions of the SRA will give the sponsor a clear idea of the conditions under which we are able to conduct funded research and will provide a good starting point for further negotiations, if necessary.