Intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) enables people to own the results of their creativity and innovation in the same way they can own physical property. The IP owner can control its use and be rewarded for it - this encourages further innovation and creativity.
Intellectual property arising from NERC-funded research underpins services and products in many business sectors. In many cases the business opportunities arising from science are best exploited by the private sector. The direct commercialisation of science through licensing and spin-outs attracts private sector investment and avoids the constraints on exploitation that exist within the public sector.
Who owns the intellectual property?
- If the IP results from research supported by standard grants to universities and other eligible bodies, those bodies retain the intellectual property rights (IPR).
- If the IP comes from Science Budget-funded work in NERC research centres, NERC owns it.
- In NERC collaborative centres, the organisation receiving the funding normally owns it.
- In some circumstances we reserve the right to retain, for a limited period, an exclusive right to exploit IP from NERC-funded programmes in universities, collaborative centres and other eligible bodies, for the benefit of grant holders and the UK. This is to avoid cases where multiple ownership of pieces of IP might put people off trying to make use of it.
Where a service is purchased from NERC, or a third party commissions research in a NERC research
centre, IP and IPR arrangements will be made to fit the particular circumstances.
In accordance with the recommendations of the
Baker Report 
, IP will belong to NERC
when the commissioning body is a government department or agency. All parties must reach
agreement on IP issues at the time of commissioning.