Is My Project Contract Research or Consultancy?
|
|
Contract Research |
Consultancy |
Dimension |
||
|
Type/source
|
Curiosity-driven; typically broad scope; undertaken to acquire new knowledge and involving risk (unknown solution)1 |
Client driven; - typically narrow scope; generally involves the application of a given body of knowledge and expertise |
|
University or Outside Work Rules |
University only |
Either |
|
Pricing |
Direct cost plus overhead |
Commercial market rates |
|
Intellectual Property ownership |
Usually the University, but on occasions either joint or client (with first right to commercialise) |
Usually the client |
|
Intellectual Property rights for the University |
Licence for the University to use for internal research and teaching |
Usually no licence for the University to use |
|
Publication rights |
Free to publish |
Usually limited or none |
|
Eligible to be reported to DEEWR as 'research income' and thus contribute to DEEWR Research Block Grant funding |
Eligible |
Only if activity meets the DEEWR definition of 'research'2 |
|
On-going management of the project |
Chief Investigator and academic department |
Melbourne Consulting and Custom Programs, Department or individual |
|
Definitely "in" |
Australian Competitive Grants; international grants (e.g. NIH, EU 7th Framework); CRCs; STI grants; collaborative research grants |
Professional advice; expert witness; testing; surveys |
Service Provider |
Melbourne Research Office |
Melbourne Consulting and Custom Programs |
1 Categorisation influenced by the ARC’s Linkage Project Rules.
2 From the DEEWR HERDC Specifications:
For the purposes of these specifications, research comprises:
• creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications[1]
• any activity classified as research which is characterised by originality; it should have investigation as a primary objective and should have the potential to produce results that are sufficiently general for humanity's stock of knowledge (theoretical and/or practical) to be recognisably increased. Most higher education research work would qualify as research
• pure basic research, strategic basic research, applied research and experimental development.
Activities that must be excluded include preparation for teaching; scientific and technical information services; general purpose or routine data collection; standardisation and routine testing; and
feasibility studies (except into research and experimental development projects).