Northern Illinois University frequently collaborates with industry sponsors on innovative research projects across a broad spectrum of fields. These projects are important to NIU ‘s research community and supports relationship building between the university and industry partners.
To support these important partnerships, Sponsored Programs Administration is dedicated to efficiently reviewing and negotiating contracts with industry partners.
These contracts, unlike grant funding, can involve lengthy and complex negotiations because these agreements are designed to address matters such as scope of work, budget, payment terms, intellectual property rights, confidentiality, publication rights, indemnification, and termination rights covering a variety of activities such as basic research, developmental research, collaborative research, and technical testing services.
Contracts follow the same timelines as other proposals. See Submitting a Proposal for these timelines.
Principal Investigators should plan for 30 business days to prepare and execute a contract through SPA. Depending on the extent of negotiations, this timeline may take longer.
For questions regarding contractual terms, templates, or the SPA review process please contact:
Sarah Senechalle, JD
Associate Director, Award Acceptance
ssenechalle@niu.edu
Complete a Proposal Intake Form. A Proposal Coordinator will work with the PI to review the technical proposal and route it for institutional approval through InfoEd. The technical proposal includes the following:
The SPA Award Team will coordinate with the PI and Proposal Coordinator to review the contract and will lead any negotiations necessary with the sponsor and obtain the Authorized Organizational Representative signature on the final contract.
When practicable, the Award Team will begin reviewing the contract during pre-award review to help expedite the process. Please understand that contracts associated with a fully approved InfoEd record receive priority review.
Working with industry partners is a bit different than working with federal government and other funding agencies. As a state institution, NIU must be careful not to use university resources for private benefit. This means that projects sponsored by industry (without federal flow-through) must have the industry sponsor paying full cost.
Tips for budgeting an industry funded project:
Industry sponsors generally operate under a very different set of priorities from public universities like NIU. Occasionally these priorities can conflict, so negotiations may take some time to come to mutually agreeable terms.
To minimize negotiations, it is best to use NIU’s standard template which includes terms and conditions that are consistent with Illinois and NIU policies. The preferred terms and conditions may not be addressed when working from the sponsor’s agreement which can lead to longer negotiations.
The standard research agreement template should be used for all projects under which patentable intellectual property is likely to be developed. This agreement includes language that protects Investigators' and the university's rights to publish, and to pursue patent protection and commercialization.
This agreement is intended for routine analysis and/or evaluation of client provided material. This template grants intellectual property to the client and should be used only for routine services where no university research or IP is expected. Testing performed as part of a departmental or university core facility with university approved established rates should use this form and coordinate with the NIU Office of Innovation. All others should work with SPA; some terms for SPA may differ (e.g., billing).
For non-research related agreements contact SPA for assistance.
Pre-award and Proposals
asosp@niu.edu
Post-award and Award Management
GrantsFiscal@niu.edu
InfoEd Questions
erahelp@niu.edu