Relationships with the industrial world are essential to create the network of collaborations within an ecosystem based on knowledge and aimed at spreading innovation. Collaborations between Politecnico di Torino and business may concern both research, development, and innovation activities and teaching and education activities.
The launch of new collaborations generally starts via consultancy contracts or research contracts. In fact, if the technological issue is cutting-edge, the first step is an accurate analysis of the prior art before then devising and assessing the feasibility of new solutions. Having validated the first two steps, genuine technological development can be undertaken through experimental work that engages researchers for several months in close and continuous exchange with the customer business. In these types of contracts (defined as “Third Party”), the management of the ownership of the results generated, and the use of technologies developed, is regulated, among other aspects.
Continuous collaboration, comprising different types of activities, is usually enhanced by drawing up a Partnership Agreement (PA for Private Businesses) or Framework Agreements (FAs, dedicated to Public Bodies) that constitute the general framework within which principles and procedures are defined that regulate the different collaboration methods.
For Politecnico di Torino, PAs and FAs with its partners represent a continuously growing asset that, from technological collaboration, increasingly constitutes a strategic dialogue and indispensable exchange on issues relating to innovation and the great contemporary challenges.
Within the Research, Technology Transfer and Innovation Department (RIMIN), there is the Corporate Relations Office that monitors PAs, ensuring cross-university support to all university departments in managing research and innovation collaborations. One of the central themes of the PAs, in terms of technology transfer, is the correct management of intellectual property rights that may be triggered by the joint research and/or development activity, with the aim of obtaining joint ownership and joint filing, potentially envisaging future strategies for enhancement aimed at selling the patent or its licence to the business.