Mid Sweden University First to Introduce Easy Access | 2011 |
In order to get the researchers’ ideas out of their desk drawers – and to ensure that the research results would be of actual benefit – Mid Sweden University introduced Easy Access in 2011. We were the first in the country and one of the first universities in the world to use this concept.
Easy Access IP, intellectual property, is a way of drawing up quick and easy agreements between researchers, companies and organisations. The agreements regulate how your company or organization can get access to free research results. The initiative to introduce the concept was taken by our Vice-Chancellor Anders Söderholm.
Anders Söderholm was on a study tour in Scotland with the innovation adviser from MIUN Innovation. There, they visited the University of Glasgow. They had developed the concept Easy Access together with King’s College London and the University of Bristol. As it turned out, Great Britain had been having the same problem that we had – too many ideas remained in the researchers’ desk drawers.
The idea bank is a place where researchers can publish their ideas, in order to make them visible to other people. In the idea bank, companies and organizations can look for ideas that are of interest for their specific activities. The idea bank also contains ideas and results that the researchers cannot continue working on themselves. In such cases, the researchers can use Easy Access IP and give away their idea or their result for free.