For Industry: Frequently Asked Questions

Companies typically engage through sponsored research, licensing or commercialization, fee-for-service or facility use, and student-focused collaborations such as capstones or fellowships. The right path depends on your goals, timeline, and level of technical uncertainty. IRP helps you choose the most effective starting point.  

Start with a short scoping conversation to clarify the technical challenge, success criteria and constraints. If non-public information needs to be shared, a confidentiality agreement can be put in place early to allow open technical discussion. CU Boulder’s partially executed Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) is a great way to fast-path the process. Learn more about NDAs.

We have a passionate team at CU Boulder who support industry partnerships, and you’ll find our “front door” at colorado.edu/industry. Whatever your need, we’ll connect the dots and help you find the right collaboration. The Industry Research Partnerships (IRP) team helps to connect you with the vast research possibilities on campus. We’ll work with you to identify faculty and labs, select the right engagement model, and coordinate contracting, compliance, and commercialization teams across campus. 

Sponsored research is a contract where your company funds a defined research effort in a CU Boulder lab. Projects typically include an agreed-upon scope, budget, and timeline, and may include a pathway to pursue rights to inventions that result from the work. Think of CU Boulder as your R&D partner to help bolster your research capacity.  

Timelines vary based on project complexity and contract terms and aligning on a non-binding term sheet to outline initial positions on publication, confidentiality, intellectual property, and other terms is extremely effective.  

Often yes! Please connect with our team to align on the potential agreement template to be used, and we’ll provide a sample to speed the negotiation.  

Confidential information is clearly defined, labeled, and shared only with authorized project personnel. Agreements specify how information must be stored, who can access it and how it is from the sponsored work. 

Background IP refers to technology each party developed outside the project. Agreements clarify how project results relate to existing technologies so neither side unintentionally gives up rights to prior inventions. 

Indirect costs support the shared research infrastructure that enables projects to run—facilities, compliance, utilities, administration and core services. Nearly all research universities include these costs in sponsored research budgets. Learn more about Indirect Costs.

Both models are used, depending on the work. Exploratory research often uses cost-reimbursable structures, while well-defined testing or measurement work may be structured as fixed-price. 

Yes. A Master Research Agreement (MRA) establishes core legal terms once, allowing future projects to launch quickly through short task orders that define scope, budget and timeline.