Types of Agreements

Collaboration Agreements are executed between institutions irrespective of whether sponsored funding is anticipated.  These agreements set out expectations, terms, and requirements to protect the interests of the investigators and the participating organizations. Such agreements may also involve use of university property and space, faculty time, students, protocols for human and animal subjects that must be approved by university officials and compliance committees.  

Contact the Office of Sponsored Programs for Collaboration Agreements. 

A Confidentiality Agreement (also known as a Non-disclosure agreement) is simply a contract between two or more parties where the subject of the agreement is a promise that information conveyed will be maintained in secrecy. 

Contact Office of Sponsored Programs for Confidentiality and Non-disclosure Agreements. 

A Consultant Agreement or a Professional Services Agreement is a legal agreement between a consultant and a client, by means of which the client buys the services of the consultant.  A consultant will typically be appointed by a client to provide professional advise and support, and may also be contracted to produce documents, software or other deliverables. 

The TTUHSC Contracting Office manages Consulting Agreements. 

A Cooperative Agreement is distinguished from a grant in that it provides for substantial involvement between the Federal awarding agency or pass-through entity and the non-federal entity in carrying out the activity contemplated by the Federal award.

Contact the Office of Sponsored Programs for all Cooperative Agreements.

A Data Use or Data Sharing Agreement is an agreement that is required under the Privacy Rule and must be entered into before there is any use or disclosure of a limited data set (defined below) to an outside institution or party. 

A limited data set is a data set that is stripped of certain direct identifiers specified in the Privacy Rule. A limited data set may be disclosed to an outside party without a patient authorization only if the purpose of the disclosure is for research, public health, or health care operations purposes and the person or entity receiving the information signs a data use agreements with the covered entity or its business associate.

Limited data sets may include only the following identifiers:

• Dates, such as admission, discharge, service, and date of birth
• City, state, and zip code (not street address)
• Age
• Any other unique code or identifier that is not listed as a direct identifier.

Please contact TTUHSC Contracting Office for Data Use/Sharing Agreements.

A research study, funded by the federal government, in which one of more human subjects are prospectively assigned to one or more interventions (which may include placebo or other control) to evaluate the effects of those interventions on health-related biomedical or behavioral outcomes.

The Office of Sponsored Programs manages Federally Sponsored Clinical Research. 

A Gift or Donation is a charitable contribution of any kind of property real or personal, including pledges, which are given for restricted or unrestricted purposes by donors from the private sector (e.g., individuals, foundations and corporations). A gift is bestowed by the donor voluntarily and without expectation of any real tangible return. 

Contact Institutional Advancement for gifts or donations.

Grants are non-repayable funds or products disbursed or gifted by one party, often a government department, corporation, foundation or trust, to a recipient, often (but not always) a nonprofit entity, educational institution or business. 

All grants are managed by the Office of Sponsored Programs.

Industry-sponsored research is paid for by an industry organization that has contracted with a faculty member to conduct a clinical trial that involves an intervention with, or observation of, a disease or biomedical condition, or a registry/repository related to a disease or biomedical condition. These protocols are authored by a non-TTUHSC employee. 

Office of Sponsored Programs handles all Industry Sponsored Clinical Trials. 

 A contract executed between or among collaborating institutions for the purchase and sale of intellectual property rights. It sets forth the rights and responsibilities of each institution concerning intellectual property that may be created during the term of collaboration. It also discusses the rights associated with intellectual property that is created jointly by the collaborating researchers as well as intellectual property created independently by each. 

TTU Office of Research Commercialization manages all Intellectual Property Agreements for TTUHSC. 

Investigator-Initiated studies are clinical studies initiated and managed by a non-pharmaceutical company researchers, like individual investigators, institutions, collaborative study groups or cooperative groups.  The researcher is responsible for the legal and regulatory responsibilities of the trial sponsor for the conduct and management of the study as defined in applicable laws and regulations. 

These studies are managed by the Office of Sponsored Programs.

A Material Transfer Agreement is a contract that governs the transfer of tangible research materials between two organizations, when the recipient intends to use it for his or her own research purposes.  The MTA defines the rights of the provider and the recipient with respect to the materials and any derivatives. 

Please visit the MTA page for more information.

All incoming and outgoing MTAs are managed by Office of Sponsored Programs. 

A Memorandum of Understanding is a formal agreement between two or more parties. Companies and organizations can use MOUs to establish official partnerships. MOUs are not legally binding but they carry a degree of seriousness and mutual respect, stronger than a gentleman's agreement.  

Contact the Office of Sponsored Programs for information on MOUs.

A Sponsored Research Agreement (SRA) is a contract between TTUHSC and a non-federal sponsor for the purposes of funding and conducting research at TTUHSC. 

SRAs include terms governing the following: 

• Scope of Work to be conducted
• Budget for the research
• Payment obligations and timing
• Schedules and deliverables
• Publication of the research results
• Licensing options for the intellectual property arising from the research

* This is not a complete list.

The Office of Sponsored Programs manages Sponsored Research Agreements.

These terms are used interchangeably to mean an award provided by a pass-through entity to a subrecipient for the subrecipient to carry out part of an award received by the pass-through entity.  It does not include payments to a contractor or payments to an individual that is a beneficiary of the program.

All subrecipient agreements are managed by the Office of Sponsored Programs.