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The Rules for Participation allow any third country
to participate in the Framework Programme. There is no need for
a formal Science and Technology Co-operation Agreement –
unless participation is limited in the annual workprogramme –
and thus NZ participates under exactly the same conditions
as Australia, the USA and Canada (amongst others).
In principle, there is nothing to prevent NZ
participation in most of the FP7 activities. There are notable
exclusions though: it’s hard to see a case for the involvement
of a NZ organization in the Ideas programme through the European
Research Council. That said, the issue of participation is less
about a right to participate than the opportunity
to be part of a contract or consortium.
Contractual role
In FP7, you are either a signatory to the grant agreement
(contract), or not. There are no associate roles, as in FP5.
In signing the formal contract with the EC and the rest of
your consortium, you agree to abide by the terms and conditions
of the EC contract, and share equal rights and responsibilities
with your partners with respect to delivering the project.
The only other possibility for involvement is
as a sub-contractor. In this role, you will provide a service
(according to the EC grant agreement, this cannot be a fundamental
part of the project) on behalf of one of the partners. Since the
intellectual property /knowledge generated in providing this service
is legally wholly owned by the partner (and in turn the consortium),
you may charge a market rate for this service provision.
In short, this means the following:
Partner
• signs grant agreement
• EC co-funding
• equal access to project and partner IP
Sub-contractor
• contract with one organization in the consortium
• can charge a market rate for activities
• no rights to IP in sub-contract or main project
The decision to participate as a sub-contractor is one that
must be considered on a case by case basis. The short-term
desire for funding should be weighed against the long-term
opportunities to exploit intellectual property. Just be sure
that the decision is yours: sometimes co-ordinators will try
to push organizations into one role that doesn’t fit
with the aims of the organisation.
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