The UG has adopted national deal term principles for university spin-offs

At the 2023 ‘State of Dutch Tech’ event, the Universities of The Netherlands (UNL) recently presented the ‘deal term principles’ for academic and non-academic spin-offs. The deal term principles describe how the transfer of intellectual property and shareholding at universities are dealt with in a spin-off in the case that a researcher ends their employment.
The majority of Dutch universities have adopted the guidelines, and the UG too has committed to following an important share of these terms.

The deal terms aim to speed up the negotiation process between universities and spin-offs in order to increase the latter’s chances of growth.

Three options for universities

The universities can decide for themselves how they want to arrange the transfer of intellectual property and shareholding of their university in spin-offs. Three options are generally available, which are described in the deal term principles:

• Royalty deals: The university licenses the intellectual property to a spin-off in exchange for compensation in the form of royalties.
• Equity deals: The university functions as a minority shareholder of the spin-off in exchange for the intellectual property.
• Hybrid deals: These comprise a combination of royalty and equity deals.

UG uses royalty deals

The UG only licenses royalty deals. This means that the UG remains the owner of the intellectual property while drawing up a license agreement with its spin-offs to exploit the intellectual property.

The deal term principles have been developed in collaboration with universities, investors, entrepreneurs, and Techleap.nl, and will be evaluated periodically.

Want to know more?

You can read the deal principles here.

Do you have questions about which exact rules apply at the UG? Please send an email to info@businessgeneratorgroningen.com. We would be happy to tell you more about it.