The transfer of materials and data into and out of RCSI is frequent in life sciences research; examples of such material/data include:
- Plasmids
- Patient Data
- Cell Lines
- Active Ingredients of Pharmaceuticals
- Devices/Apparatus
In many cases, the material or data being transferred is proprietary and/or confidential to the transferring party. In such circumstances, the transfer of the material/data by the transferring party should be made conditional on the conclusion of a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA). The provider of the material/data will generally insist on using its own template MTA. The terms of such MTAs, and particularly MTAs prepared by Industry, can often be quite onerous, and can result in the provider of the material having “reach through” rights on the results of your research.
RCSI ORI will review any third party MTAs and, if need be, renegotiate the terms. We will also prepare suitable MTAs for the transfer of RCSI material to a third party in consultation with the Principal Investigator. Such outgoing MTAs protect RCSI’s ownership, publication and confidentiality rights.
All MTAs should be in the name of the RCSI and not an individual Department, School or Lab within the College, and must be signed by an authorised signatory of the College.
The ORI procedures for incoming and outgoing MTAs are set out below. You will also find below a weblink to a presentation on MTAs and to the Knowledge Transfer Ireland Practical Guide to Material Transfer Agreements.
Contact: researchcontracts@rcsi.ie, Research Contracts Officer, Office of Research and Innovation
Transfers involving human materials such as DNA, blood or patient data may have additional requirements under GDPR and the Health Research Regulations and are managed under a separate process. For transfers involving human materials, please contact clinrescont@rcsi.ie
USEFUL LINKS
1. ORI Procedure for MTAs
2. RCSI Presentation on Material Transfer Agreements
3. Knowledge Transfer Ireland Practical Guide to MTA’s
4. MTA Presentation
Training-for-Research-Managers-MTA