Responsibilities relating to collaboration agreements

The role of the Project Owner

The Project Owner has the following responsibilities in relation to collaboration agreements:

• You are responsible for ensuring that the collaboration agreements comply with the terms and conditions of the contract.
• You are responsible for ensuring that the partners are informed at all times about relevant elements of the contract with the Research Council.
• You are responsible for ensuring compliance with the reporting requirements stipulated by the Research Council. The collaboration agreement must regulate the cooperation among partners in a manner that provides you with the information you need to fulfil these requirements.
• You are responsible for ensuring that neither the Project Owner nor collaborating partners receive indirect state aid, in accordance with the description in ESA's guidelines for public funding for research, development and innovation.

The role of the Research Council

The Research Council has the following responsibilities in connection with collaboration agreements:

• We communicate directly with the Project Owner, and are not party to the collaboration agreements.
• We stipulate certain requirements for collaboration agreements, including how ownership rights and rights to project results are to be regulated.

These requirements are based on the Principles for: the Research Council of Norway’s Policy on Intellectual Property Rights (pdf)

The requirements are also set out under section Right of ownership, utilisation rights and licensing: General terms and conditions for R&D projects 2021 (pdf)