Research Data

When you start planning a research project, you should check what contractual obligations, property rights, necessary data protection, and intellectual property and utilisation issues will concern the research material you are going to collect, produce, or use in the project. The instructions below are suitable for all types of projects, be it a research project by one researcher, or a collaborative project between several researchers and organisations.

The instructions are also applicable regardless of whether the data produced and processed in the project is experimental, observation-based, simulation-based, pre-existing, or qualitative. Below are intellectual property, contract, and data protection instructions, and contract templates you may need to take into account in your data management. In section 3, there is information on licensing and sharing your research data.

1. Intellectual property (ownership, copyright, inventions, patenting, and utilisation of results)

1.1 Who owns / who has access rights to your research material?

• If you are doing contract research = your project has an external funder, such as Research Council of Finland, Business Finland (BF), the EU, or it is a paid service activity or other type of business cooperation.
  • No → The researcher owns the research material and manages the access rights.
  • Yes (SA, BF, EU) → Research material is owned by the University of Turku, sign a Contract On The Transfer Of Rights In Contract Research (usually an appendix to the employment contract).
  • Yes (other contract research) → find out who has ownership of the research material and, if necessary, sign a contract on the transfer of rights.
• Will the research process produce outputs subject to copyright law?
  • Yes → Submit a copyright notice → Contact us and submit a notification at legal@utu.fi and Innovation Services (greip.utu.fi → New Idea).
     

1.2 Will the research result in an invention, or are you interested in using your research materials or results commercially?

No     → No extra steps needed.

Yes    → See the instructions in the links below.

• Inventions and the Act on the Right in Inventions made at Higher Education Institutions
• Submit an Invention Disclosure (in the Greip tool). Page includes a link to the Greip tool where you can submit an invention disclosure, as well as instructions on how to fill in and send the electronic invention disclosure. The university’s evaluation process starts only after receiving the invention disclosure.
• Read the Guideline for Inventions through carefully and for extra reading there is the EUREKA! – A Guide for Protecting and Commercialising Research Results.
• If you apply for an intellectual property protection (e.g. patent), it will not significantly slow down the publication (must be unpublished information!), but may be a prerequisite for commercialising your invention.
• The commercialisation process starts with the evaluation of the invention or innovation concept. Even when the evaluation does not involve intellectual property rights, please see Commercialisation and Technology Transfer.
• In addition to the invention disclosure, the Guideline on the Ownership, Rights of Use and Commercialisation of Materials Generated In Research must also be taken into account. 
• For questions on copyright and intellectual property rights, please contact legal@utu.fi.

 

2. Contracts/Agreements

2.1 Could any parts of the research material be considered confidential?

No     → No extra steps needed.

Yes    → Sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement or take the company's confidentiality agreement into account.
 

2.2 Will you transfer research material or data to another researcher or organisation?

No     → No extra steps needed.

Yes    → Sign a Material Transfer Agreement or Research data agreement
 

2.3 Is the research / project connected to the funding done with another organisation?

No     → No extra steps needed.

Yes    → Sign a Research Agreement or a Cooperation Agreement. If the contract is signed with a funder, ask for a model contract from the funder. If the funder does not have a model, see further instructions.
 

2.4 Does your research data contain personal data?

No     → No extra steps needed.

Yes    → Check the tab titled "Personal information and sensitive data", which personal data processing agreements apply to your project.
 

2.5 Will the project acquire paid research material or will an external operator be commissioned to produce the material?

No     → No extra steps needed.

Yes    → Go through the university's procurement guidelines.

 

3. Licencing

The University of Turku recommends, to the extent it is possible, that research data should be archived in a general or discipline-specific open access archive or repository for further use. Therefore, the data should be licenced under a Creative Commons licence or equivalent. Creative Commons licences are standard licences used to determine the terms of use of research data.