Promoting Research and Innovation

Translating research into industrial applications will require strategies and stakeholders operating at the intersection of the scientific and socioeconomic worlds. Identifying and protecting the innovative nature of a discovery will be followed by the search for funding and partners to turn that idea into an economic reality.

This course unit will focus on providing students with all the tools they need to showcase their work with a view to discovering new therapeutic tools. This course unit includes lectures delivered by law faculty members and professionals in the field, as well as a supervised project that students will work on throughout the course unit. Work will also be conducted in the Learning Lab, including identifying innovative research, drafting a patent application, developing a commercialization strategy, starting a business, and creating a business plan.

This course will feature faculty members, industry representatives, and professionals in the fields of patents and technology transfer.

The objective of this course unit is to equip students with the skills they need to capitalize on the discoveries they will make as part of their research activities in academia or industry, with a view to future industrial development.

By the end of the course, students will have acquired skills in the following areas:

· Research funding agencies (ANR, Europe);

· Structures that support and finance innovation (SATT, BPI, venture capital, public-private partnerships);

· Intellectual property (patentability analysis, invention disclosure, patent application, extension)

· Outsourcing of research, open innovation, collaboration agreements, license agreements, MTAs;

· Starting a business, legal structures, operations, and financing;

· Labor law.

Students will be able to identify innovative research and protect it with a patent in order to commercialize it, either through a partnership with an industry partner or by founding a startup. They will be able to prepare funding applications for organizations that support research and innovation. They will understand the process of founding an innovative company, how such companies operate, and how they are financed.

Assessment is based on a comprehensive continuous evaluation system (CCI).