Payment types included on technology licensing agreements and earnings distribution among Portuguese universities

Abstract

Knowledge and technology transfer practices between universities and industry are aimed to enhance the value of research and development outcomes. They allow researchers and universities to obtain resources and revenues through the establishment of licensing and cooperative research and development agreements. The main objective and contribution of this paper is to provide evidence on what are the main payment types in use by university Technology Transfer Units (TTUs) ensuring a comprehensive overview of the concepts and practices under assessment. This approach also gave us the opportunity to know the earnings distribution among the Portuguese public universities, and to list different dispositions influencing the value of a licensing agreement. Interviews to eight Portuguese university TTUs have been done as a way of perceiving from an insider perspective the issues that this paper wants to emphasize and an extensive literature review has been done, which included the review of the intellectual property regulation of most Portuguese public universities.