Guy Biddle
Partner
Education & Research
We understand that the commercial and regulatory environment is complex and “red tape” is difficult to unravel
How we can help
We have a dedicated team to assist your institutions to understand, comply and flourish in a demanding legal environment. Our multi-disciplinary team are able to assist you in various matters from high-level strategic issues surrounding the management of critical incidents and regulatory oversight through to procurement and other contractual arrangements for your day-to-day operations.
Key services
- Advising companies limited by guarantee, such as co-operative research centres, on eligibility for various payroll and Commonwealth tax concessions (including DGR and tax exempt status)
- Advising on Auditor-General investigations regarding the expenditure of public funds
- Acting in disputes regarding the control and treatment of research funding
- Drafting and negotiating amendments to participant agreements, Commonwealth and State government funding agreements
- Advising on secondment arrangements for employees and students of tertiary education providers
- Drafting employment contracts
- Drafting and negotiating IP licences and commercialisation agreements
- Negotiating and drafting major design and construction contracts for school infrastructure projects
- Due diligence and advising on property acquisitions, disposals, divisions and approval processes (including in respect of early childhood learning centres)
- Advising on taxation requirements (including CGT, GST and income tax) for education providers as not-for-profit entities)
Experience
- Tertiary Education Quality & Standards Agency Act
- Research
- Advising on the establishment of a health science and research centre in South Australia
- Advising a Commonwealth funded co-operative research centre on all of its intellectual property licensing arrangements. This included the drafting and negotiation of background intellectual property licence agreements, commercialisation licence agreements and royalty agreements which were required to commercialise various mining equipment technologies, throughout the life of the co-operative research centre. It also involved reviewing and advising upon internal processes such as the requirements for intellectual property commercialisation plans and the transfer of various intellectual property rights upon the deregistration of the co-operative research center
- Advising a participant in the SmartSat Co-operative Research Centre (CRC) on the proposed Participants Agreement, Project Agreement and Constitution
- Advising a participant in the Race for 2030 CRC on the proposed Constitution and Core Partners Agreement
- IP & IT
- Advising a registered training organisation on its copyright materials and terms and conditions of use for its online educational materials
- Advising tertiary education providers on the preparation of privacy policies in compliance with the Australian Privacy Principles, the reporting of eligible data breaches to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
- Acting for a major Australian university in reviewing and amending its suite of intellectual property templates. Templates which were used throughout the university (including its commercialisation entity). The review required the preparation of contractual provisions dealing with the ownership of intellectual property developed during research projects, the calculation of individual ownership shares and the distribution of commercialisation income arising from research activities.
- Preparation of Commercial Document Templates
- Advising an Australian university on the Defence Science Program suite of documents with the Commonwealth Department of Defence
- Advising a major Australian university on the preparation of a suite of commercial templates, including service agreements, workplace placement agreements, collaboration agreements, course development and delivery agreements, offshore program agreements and student exchange agreements. Our work involved drafting the commercial templates, together with the preparation of user guidance notes and where appropriate, alternative clauses on key contractual issues such as limitation of liability, indemnities, ownership of intellectual property and warranties
Advising tertiary education providers on their obligations under the Tertiary Education Quality & Standards Agency Act 2011 (Cth)
Our Education & Research Experts
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