Collaboration terms

You wish to build a collaboration with INRIA, please contact the Department of Development and Industrial Relations development and industrial relations.

General Agreements

They are large-scale partnerships with big industrial groups. They insure a narrow collaboration on huge strategic subjects for the company by ways through numerous particular research contracts signed between the parties. An organization with Executive Committee and Technical Committee guarantees the coherence and the proper functioning of the collaboration.

Research contracts

When a solution to a given problem doesn't exist within its general operational functions, a partner can solicit the help of an INRIA research team that is specialized in the particular field, creating a scientific collaboration. According to the needs, the evaluation of the risk, and the reciprocal interest of the parties involved, a collaboration will be built and financed, either entirely or in part, by the partner. The evaluation of the risk plays an important role in the decision concerning financing-- In general, the required funds will decrease as the evaluated risk increases. In any case, the scientific team will put their knowledge to work so as to find a solution while engaging in a means obligation. If the parties involved are in agreement as to the interest of topic, there is also the possibility of responding to international, European, or national partnership offers that correspond to programs and subjects of wide scale research. For a global reporting, click here

Consulting Contracts

A team of researchers can appraise an industrial problem within the scope of its field without necessarily engaging itself in the search of an advanced solution. It typically involves establishing an assessment of the current operational functions within a field, and assisting, as a consultant, when a new creation tests the limits of those functions. The industrial partner is then asked to cover the costs of the services furnished by the research team.

License and Technology Transfer Agreements

Assessment software Licensing

The manufacturer is interested in using software that was developed by a team of researchers for internal test, void of commercial and operational application. This is possible, for example, with software that has recently passed the experimental stages. INRIA gives over the right to use recently tested software for a limited period of time. The financial stipulations for software licensing that has reached the end of its test program depends upon the mutual interest of the two parties concerned and the resources they have invested in the collaboration.

Co-ownership Contracts

These contracts are often drawn up following a scientific collaboration so as to define, when necessary, the clause that states the conditions for intellectual ownership, and that of the results that have been obtained by the research team and their partners. When a research team and its partner collaborate on the creation of a particular software, or the development of an invention that falls within the scope of a jointly conducted research program, the possession and means of execution of the joint property rests upon the results of the research, and its subsequent commercial and scientific value.

Commercial licensing

When the partner wishes to exploit and/or distribute a software and/or invention developed by a research team for its own commercial purposes, possibly carrying the designated trademark of the aforementioned software and/or invention, he then concedes the rights to exploitation and use more or less according to his needs, (reproduction, adaptation, marketing, distribution, representation) The research team commits to the necessary means by which the technology is transferred, (code quality, training, and documentation). The means by which the partner shall pay depends upon the context of the market and the means of marketing and distribution of the software and/or invention.

Corporate R&D actions

Partnership in Development Initiative

These programs are based upon experimentation and the technological development of the research conducted at INRIA. These programs are conducted in partnership with one or more principle actors or users of information technologies, and the research projects where the results come from, their objectives being defined by a limited time frame (generally three to five years). These programs are established either through the initiative of the partners or that of INRIA. The partners come to the program for a variety of reasons: They wish to improve their technological portfolios, there is an opening for a new opportunity, they have the capacity to realize their own technological deficiency, or they struggle with the upstream battle of marketing these technologies. For INRIA, it is an efficient means of valorizing its results and identifying new areas of research.
Experience has shown that most of the projects of development in partnership offer a coordination and cross-fertilization field between the partners and technoloy start-up. See also Partnership in Development Initiative underway

Consortiums

A consortium federates the design and development of scientific results that cannot be directly tranfer in the industry. Joining forces with users and developers helps to support development and to distribute results.
The Consortium supports free software development very well. A consortium is created by partnerships with INRIA. For more effective support, new contributions are welcome. See also Consortiums underway.