For Business Partners

Researchers from the universities of Basel, Bern and Zurich have many contacts and collaborations with business partners. Joint projects might be drawn up as a direct project between the company and a research group or might be in the context of a national or international funding program. Unitectra assists researchers in their collaboration with business partners and will draft and negotiate the research agreements.

The university welcomes and supports the cooperation of its institutes and researchers with the private sector in Switzerland and abroad. Such projects should be for the benefit of both parties involved and the interests of the universities as a public research institution must be observed. Collaborations with academia provide the business partner with access to cutting-edge research in various disciplines. There are different forms of collaborating, e.g. with sponsored research agreements, as contract research, by involving university employees as consultants, just to mention a few. Moreover, personal contacts with young scientists are of interest for hiring new personnel.

The legal counterpart for any collaboration agreements is the university, not the researcher nor the institute or department. Agreements with business partners thus require, for their legal validity, approval by the Executive Board of the university. Private consulting agreements are an exception from this rule if the regulations of the university are followed and if neither infrastructure nor university personnel are being used.

The rights to the research results produced by university employees are owned by the university. Any commercial application of such results requires prior contractual approval by the university.