Contracts


The R&I Contracts service provides user-focused, specialist contracting support for all R&I agreements.

Leading colleagues across LSE Research & Innovation, the contracts service is responsible for drafting, reviewing, negotiating and authorising all HESA-research and all impact and innovation-related contracts, including those managed by LSE Consulting, on behalf of the University and providing advice on legal matters related to research and innovation activities and policies.

For all other matters please contact the Legal Team.

Types of agreement

We support the following agreements where they arise from R&I managed funded research, impact and innovation projects:

  • Collaboration agreements
  • Overseas and UK research consulting supplier services
  • Funder agreements and Head Terms
  • Research related Non-Disclosure and Confidentiality Data access agreements originating from the Data Library (including dataset subscriptions)  
  • Memoranda of Understanding for research and research related activity 
  • Innovation Agreements and legal matters 
  • Standalone intellectual property licensing and assignment agreements
  • Articles for company incorporation
  • LSE Enterprise Consulting Agreements Software development agreements 
  • Externally sponsored PhD studentships 

Explore our bank precedents below for drafts of available agreement types.

Precedent bank 

Contracts process

Our Contracts Team has responsibility for and is delegated by LSE to supply professional legal and contractual research services and support to every constituency. View full details of our Contracts Process including team roles and responsibilities here.

Contract requests 

Our Research Impact, Research Development and Research Awards Managers remain the main point of contact with LSE academics, researchers and their teams. Please liaise with your unit's R&I contact to arrange any agreement(s) for your partnerships.

We require a base level of information to effectively draft a research or innovation contract. Please provide the following information for all requests:

  • Third party name(s)
  • Third party contact details
  • Type of contract(s)
  • Details of the relationship including scope of work, duration, budget available and all associated documentation. 

Our service response times

We aim to respond within the following times:

  • First substantive response (i.e., a review of terms, a draft agreement, or other contractual response): within 10 working days of receipt of a full request
  • Any subsequent contractual response: within 5 working days of receipt

The overall time from initiation to signature of a research or innovation contract can vary from a few working days to multiple months, which should be built into project timelines. It is important to engage our team as soon as possible to avoid delays to your activities.

The average turnaround time for completion of a research contract is 49 days. More complex matters may take this length of time or longer and straightforward matters may take considerably less time.

 

Further guidance