Contract management

Support for contracts and agreements

Civil Law and Contracts unit

For agreements in the following cases, contact the Civil Law and Contracts unit:

• Consortium agreements in EU research program Horizon 2020, (including Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, EURATOM, RFCS, ESA and EIT)
• Collaborative agreements (usually in part financed by for example Vinnova, Energimyndigheten, FORMAS and Vetenskapsrådet)
• Contract research agreements
• Industrial doctoral student agreements
• Adjunct professor agreements
• Affiliated faculty agreements
• Confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements
• Letters of intent or memorandums of understanding
• Material transfer agreements/data transfer agreements

According to the KTH delegation, all agreements on research collaboration must be reviewed by the Civil Law and Contracts unit. The lawyers make an assessment of KTH's risk and negotiate the agreements if necessary. The lawyers then compile a legal statement to the authorised decision maker as a basis for a decision on whether or not to enter into the agreement.

Your local contract coordinator

As of 1 September 2020 there is a Contract Coordinator at all schools. Your contract coordinator will compile all the necessary documentation and initiate contact with the Civil Law and Contracts unit. Contact your local contract coordinator urgently for the best possible help:

ABE school, avtalssamordning@abe.kth.se
CBH school, avtal@cbh.kth.se
EECS school, avtal@eecs.kth.se
ITM, Energy Technology, avtal-egi@itm.kth.se
ITM, Production Engineering, avtal-ipu@itm.kth.se
ITM, Industrial Management, avtal-indek@itm.kth.se
ITM, Learning in Engineering Sciences, avtal-les@itm.kth.se
ITM, Machine Design, avtal-mmk@itm.kth.se
ITM, Material Science, avtal-mse@itm.kth.se
SCI school, avtal@sci.kth.se

Information to note before legal review

Below you will find information that may be helpful when KTH decides to enter into an agreement with an external party.

Information required by the Civil Law and Contracts unit

We need information about the terms of your relationship and agreement before we can start reviewing or establishing a written agreement. The sooner we get information about the prerequisites for an agreement, the faster and more efficiently we can handle your matter. A comprehensive description of the situation facilitates our work and saves a lot of time in the negotiations with the other party. Our primary purpose is to establish an agreement that reflects the intention of the parties involved, in order for the agreement to be predictable and easy to understand and follow.

Specific information needed:

• What is KTH's mission and purpose in the research?
• What should KTH do? (project description, description of work)
• Who are the Parties? (name and contact details)
• Who is responsible for KTH? (name and contact details)
• How is the collaboration or assignment financed?
• Does KTH receive full cost coverage?
• Will doctoral students admitted to research studies at KTH participate? Are they employees of KTH or do they have other funding? (generally, students should not participate, since they are not employed by KTH)
• Will all parties participate in the research?
• Will any of the parties provide background information? (such as previously generated results, know-how, materials)
• What kind of results are expected to come from the project? (written reports, computer programs, patents, other)
• Is it likely that the results are generated by KTH researchers alone or with other project partners?
• Is any party in the project interested in commercial use of the results?
• Will confidential information be exchanged?
• Do KTH researchers want to publish the results?

Please note that researchers in charge of a project are responsible for signing the required Researcher Agreement and that the school manager's approval must have been obtained on the School Approval Form for the current project before the agreement is signed.

RSO school confirmation 2020.pdf (pdf 1.4 MB)

Contractual terms to be included in agreements

A project description (for example, in the form of a Statement of Work / Description of Work) should always form the basis of a collaborative agreement or assignment. The project description should clearly indicate and define the work to be performed, how it should be carried out, who´s task it is, according to what schedule, what costs, and how the reporting should take place, etc.

In its capacity as a governmental agency, KTH must comply with certain mandatory laws and regulation. For KTH, the terms of the agreements, may therefore need to be different than for commercial companies, who are not bound by the same legislation.

• KTH and its researchers must be allowed to continue research based on results generated in research projects where KTH is a party.
• Publication of KTH’s researchers’ sole results may be delayed with a maximum of three months if the results are to be patented.
• KTH and its researchers must be able to use the results generated by KTH’s researchers, for education and research purposes.  
• Results should be owned by the party who solely or jointly generated the result in the project. However, KTH may not own nor license the right to an invention due to the so called Professor’s Privilege/Teacher’s Exemption (if the results are generated by a researcher at KTH, the results should be owned by the researcher). This may in some cases call for an exception as for the right to other results than inventions, if generated through contract research with full cost coverage – albeit not for inventions.  
• Researchers at KTH who own their own results may grant user’s rights to another party against fair remuneration based on the market value and other fair terms.  
• If another party needs to use results that are in total or as a part based on know-how/Background Information owned by a researcher at KTH, KTH shall safeguard the researcher’s right to fair terms, including fair remuneration based on market value, when user’s rights are granted to another party in a research agreement.  
• A transfer of ownership to results owned by a researcher at KTH may take place if agreed directly with the researcher in a separate agreement on fair remuneration based on market value.
• KTH shall have the right to disclose and archive information if required under mandatory Swedish law (incl. the Principle of Public Access to Information).

The KTH policy for intellectual property must be observed when KTH signs collaborative and contract research with external parties.

​ Policy for intellectual property created at KTH (docx 63 kB)

Management

Once the Civil Law and Contracts unit has received the information needed, we will begin our work with the review or establishment of the agreement and contact the other parties for negotiation. During the course of the proceedings, researchers in charge of projects are often contacted for additional information about the project, the results that may be generated, etc. Contact may also need to be taken with administrative staff and with the decision-maker (which may be the Head of School, Head of the Research Support Office, or Vice President for Research, depending on the agreement). As a researcher, you will be informed about the contract management.

Who is authorised to sign an agreement?

The contents of an agreement and its total economic value determines who is authorised to sign it on behalf of KTH. This is stated in KTH's main delegation document.

KTH's delegation documents, in which decision-makers have sub-delegated the right to make decisions on research agreements:

• Delegation for KTH (in Swedish)
• Delegation for research agreements (in Swedish)
• Head of School (available on the KTH's school internal pages )

The decision-maker is responsible for verifying that the agreement benefits KTH's operations, ensuring that the financing has been secured and that resources are available to fulfill the contractual obligations. The decision-maker is also responsible for making sure the contract is reviewed by the Civil Law and Contracts Unit prior to signature.

Research agreements

KTH researchers have ownership of their intellectual properties. When participating in research projects it is often the case that other project partners need to have users’ rights to Background Information owned by KTH researchers and vice versa, that KTH´s researchers need to have access to other project partners’ Background Information. This is the reason why all researchers who participate in a research project via KTH must sign a researcher’s agreement.

The Principal Investigator should ensure that all participating researchers sign such an agreements. The decision-maker is responsible for ensuring that the Principal Investigator has made sure all participating researchers have signed a researcher’s agreement before signing the project agreement on behalf of KTH. Contact your school’s Contract Coordinator to obtain the researcher’s agreement templates.