The trend towards more open innovation serves to put the IPR issue on the current political agenda. Some governments have addressed the IPR issue. In Finland, the Research and Innovation Council (RIC) has introduced a number of Strategic Centres for Science, Technology and Innovation. The idea is to provide a high degree of openness in new international research partnerships, which is reflected in the general IPR guidelines.

The Finnish SHOKs organize global research partnerships between multiple international players such as academia and industry. The aim is to achieve world-class expertise and internationally-important innovations and discoveries within a given sector or industry.

First, companies, universities, research institutes and other partners in the SHOK agree on a joint strategic research agenda. Then, this agenda is jointly operationalized into several long-term research projects. In these projects, the partners develop shared know-how, technology and service platforms and utilize joint research environments and research tools.

Finally, in case an invention emerges out of the innovations or discoveries in the joint research partnership, all partners in the given SHOKs are provided with the right to use it without having to provide any compensation to the original inventor of the IPR. The first SHOK was established in the forestry industry by Tekes and the Academy of Finland in 2007.

Read more: http://www.etla.fi/files/2261_Dp1182.pdf

Source: Antti Tahvanainen, ETLA