Field og Field of Use

Field description in your collaboration agreement

When you collaborate with one or more companies in a research project, the companies may be offered a right of first refusal to use the department's results (background and foreground knowledge) commercially once the project is completed.

To determine which part of the results the department can and will sell to the company, your agreement must include a Field description.

When you collaborate with one company in a project

The Field description defines which results the company can be offered a right of first refusal for - the results that falls within the description can be offered to the company.

Therefore, the field description should not include results in which the department has a research interest, or which cannot be sold, e.g. because the results have already been offered to other companies. Therefore, it is also important that there is an overview of the Field descriptions at the department, and that your Field description is discussed internally, e.g. with the management or the contract responsible.

The Field description should also ensure that the department will be able to attract relevant new partners and funding for other research projects in the future.

Selling the results limits the further research, so it is important for the department to carefully consider which results you can and will sell.

Therefore, the Field should be described as narrowly and precisely as possible.

When you collaborate with multiple companies in a project

In projects where you collaborate with more than one company, in addition to the Field (as described above), a Field of Use must also be described.

The Field of Use determines which of the companies should be offered a right of first refusal to the department's results. Unlike the Field, the Field of Use is defined by the companies.

Regardless of the Field of Use description, the right of first refusal will still only apply to the department's results within the Field.

Examples of Field

Below are some examples of different Field descriptions:

Example 1: "A CO2 Trap, that uses waste stone wool for mineralising CO2, using optimised geocatalysts, to produce a fine-grained concrete additive."

Example 2: "Video compression and quality metrics for high-quality images and videos as used for software for professional photography, with focus on aspects of high color quality."

Example 3: "We will improve and deploy our new energy system model, Filur, which represents a new framework for soft-linking energy system and demand response models for the future weather-driven energy systems."

Results within the above Field descriptions can be offered to a company in the project.

If there are multiple companies in the same project, the companies' own descriptions of their Field of Use will determine who is offered the results within the above Field descriptions.