Industry

Collaborating with APC

APC has a long, impressive track record of collaborating with national and international industry, having partnered with 86 companies over its 20-year history.  These collaborations have ranged from short (<1 year) research projects with SMEs to multi-year strategic research programmes funded or co-funded by large pharma and food companies. Outcomes include new products and services on the market, validated product concepts, and provision of robust scientific evidence to underpin product development. APC research programmes and platform facilities are relevant to many industry sectors – food, pharma, biotechnology, infant nutrition, medical foods, diagnostics, sports nutrition, brewing, agriculture and animal health areas such as veterinary, companion pet care, and animal feed.   

Through our flexible industry engagement models, we welcome new industry partners from Ireland and globally, interested in a collaborative research project, access to our cutting-edge research infrastructures, or industry-academia staff secondments or exchanges. We work with knowledge-based industry at all stages of technology readiness and along the R&D pathway, from discovery to proof of concept (pre-clinical), to clinical stage development.

IP Management and Commercialisation

Working closely with UCC’s Technology Transfer Office - UCC Innovation, APC implements a robust IP management framework in order to commercialise its research and maximise its impact on economy and society.

This begins with training new staff and students in the basics of IP and the importance of maintaining confidentiality until IP is protected. This includes the diligent use of Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs) and Confidential Disclosure Agreements (CDAs) to regulate and protect the transfer of materials and exchange of information. The process for screening draft publications for potential IP is also covered. Every invention and discovery of significance is captured and evaluated for commercial potential in an Invention Disclosure Form (IDF) before a decision is made to proceed with a patent application and a commercialisation strategy is mapped out. This may include technology licensing to industry or the formation of a new spin-out company.

Industry funded or co-funded research projects are governed by collaboration agreements signed by the parent University / Institution and the company.  As per the National IP Protocol, a company’s access rights to IP generated in a collaborative research project are proportional to the company’s financial contribution to the project. Where a project is co-funded, the company is granted an option to license the project IP and license terms are negotiated at the point of IP creation. APC always reserves the right to use IP for academic research and teaching purposes and freedom-to-operate is maintained around use of broadly-enabling research tools and technologies to sustain the capacity to attract new industry partners as well as for training and education purposes.

APC has an impressive track record of licensing technologies to industry.