News

European Commission and stakeholders develop "Code of practice for the smart use of Intellectual Property“

12. Aug 2022

The European Commission has convened a stakeholder group under Action 7 of the European Research Area Policy Agenda, "Upgrade EU guidance for a better knowledge valorisation", to contribute to the development of a "Code of practice for the smart use of Intellectual Property". The code of practice is intended to provide guidance to researchers and transfer and science managers on how to deal with intellectual property. 

The group is called "Community of Practice" and has been working together on a voluntary basis since the beginning of this year. It consists of about 180 representatives from universities, research institutions, companies, transfer offices, national authorities and other organisations.

In the meantime, the "Community of practice" has submitted a draft report to the European Commission on the basis of which the Commission will draw up the "Code of practice for the smart use of Intellectual Property". The "Code of practice" is to be published at the end of this year. Interested parties can still join the "Community of practice" at this stage. Interest can be expressed via RTD-IP-COMMUNITY-OF-PRACTICE@ec.europa.eu.

In order to show practical examples of how the exploitation of research results can be supported by smart IP management, best practices from various countries are listed on the Knowledge Valorisation Platform of the European Commission. Stakeholders are also invited to publish their own examples.

In March, the Commission published a "Scoping study for supporting the development of a code of practice for researchers on standardisation", also in the context of ERA Action 7 (see KoWi Newsletter of 8 April 2022). The study is intended to contribute to the development of the "Code of practice for researchers and standardisation".