Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Apr;18(4):254-73.
doi: 10.1089/omi.2013.0158. Epub 2014 Feb 19.

Legal agreements and the governance of research commons: lessons from materials sharing in mouse genomics

Amrita Mishra  1 , Tania Bubela
Affiliations

Legal agreements and the governance of research commons: lessons from materials sharing in mouse genomics

Amrita Mishra et al. OMICS. 2014 Apr.

Abstract

Omics research infrastructure such as databases and bio-repositories requires effective governance to support pre-competitive research. Governance includes the use of legal agreements, such as Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs). We analyze the use of such agreements in the mouse research commons, including by two large-scale resource development projects: the International Knockout Mouse Consortium (IKMC) and International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium (IMPC). We combine an analysis of legal agreements and semi-structured interviews with 87 members of the mouse model research community to examine legal agreements in four contexts: (1) between researchers; (2) deposit into repositories; (3) distribution by repositories; and (4) exchanges between repositories, especially those that are consortium members of the IKMC and IMPC. We conclude that legal agreements for the deposit and distribution of research reagents should be kept as simple and standard as possible, especially when minimal enforcement capacity and resources exist. Simple and standardized legal agreements reduce transactional bottlenecks and facilitate the creation of a vibrant and sustainable research commons, supported by repositories and databases.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

<b>FIG. 1.</b>
FIG. 1.
Types of Material Transfer Agreement (MTAs) used to distribute and use mouse-related research tools in the global mouse research commons: (1) mouse resources distributed amongst researchers; (2) deposit agreements for mouse resources to repositories from (a) researchers or (b) large-scale production centers for the generation of mouse resources such as the IKMC production centers; (3) distribution agreements from the repositories to (a) nonprofit/academic users or (b) commercial users; and (4) amongst repositories for value-added activities such as phenotyping (IMPC) or mirroring of resources for distribution.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Adams D, Baldock R, Bhattacharya S, et al. (2013). Bloomsbury report on mouse embryo phenotyping: Recommendations from the IMPC workshop on embryonic lethal screening. Dis Models Mech 6, 571–579 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Aghion P, Dewatripont M, Kolev J, Murray F, and Stern S. (2010). Innovation and open science: The public and private sectors in the process of innovation: Theory and evidence from the mouse genetics revolution. Am Econ Rev Papers Proc 100, 153–158
    1. Association of University Technology Managers, (2007). In the Public Interest: Nine Points to Consider in Licensing University Technology. https://www.autm.net/Nine_Points_to_Consider.htm Accessed January23, 2014
    1. Association of University Technology Managers (2013) Uniform Biological Materials Transfer Agreement (UBMTA). http://www.autm.net/Technology_Transfer_Resources/8395.htm Accessed January23, 2014
    1. Ball A. (2012). How to License Research Data. Edinburgh: Digital Curation Centre; http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/how-guides Accessed January23, 2014

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources