Instruct-ERIC Policy and Guidelines on the Distribution and Sharing of Material
– With relation to Instruct-ERIC activities involving academic and commercial users
Date: 28 March 2024
Version: 1.1
1. Introduction
Instruct-ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium) is an international infrastructure that brings together leading European structural biology Centres (www.instruct-eric.org). Through access to the facilities of Instruct-ERIC centres, research and development awards and sponsored internships, Instruct-ERIC supports the provision of advanced structural biology techniques and expertise to the scientific (academic and industrial) communities of its Member.
This policy sets out the approach of Instruct-ERIC to the distribution and sharing of materials produced in the course of accessing the facilities of Instruct-ERIC Centres and should be read in conjunction with the Instruct-ERIC Statutes (2017/C 230/01).
2. Principles
Instruct-ERIC seeks to make all materials produced from Instruct-ERIC activities available to the scientific community in a manner that recognises the contributions of Providers, Users, their organisations and those of any other parties.
Instruct-ERIC disclaims that the use of the material will not infringe any patent, copyright, trademark, or other proprietary rights.
Instruct-ERIC disclaims all representations and warranties of any kind related to the use of any materials resulting from Instruct-ERIC activities.
3. Definitions
Terms and phrases in this policy shall have the meanings ascribed to them below.
“Academic and Research Purposes” means research, teaching or other scholarly use which is undertaken for one of the User’s principal objects of the advancement of learning by teaching and research and its dissemination by any means;
“Research Project” means a project to be undertaken by a User, in the course of which it will use Instruct-ERIC Facilities and in relation to which a proposal to use Instruct-ERIC-Related Facilities has been approved by Instruct-ERIC;
“Material” means any reagent including plasmids vectors, cell lines and proteins that are produced from Instruct-ERIC activities;
“Modifications” means substances created by the User which contain/incorporate the Material.
“Funder” means any entity which provides financial support for the whole or significant part of any Research Programme;
“Research Programme” means a set of related research activities with a particular long-term aim;
“Users” means those applicants including the Principal Investigator and their team whose proposal to use Instruct-ERIC Facilities for a Research Project has been accepted by Instruct-ERIC;
“Providers” means the Instruct-ERIC Facilities that provided access to use their facilities to carry out a Research Project;
4. Ownership
4.1 The Provider retains ownership of the Material including any Material contained or incorporated in Modifications.
4.2 The Material will be made available by the Provider to the User for Academic and Research Purposes under the Provider's Material Transfer Agreement as appropriate.
4.3 The Material will be provided at no cost, or with an optional fee solely to reimburse the Provider for its preparation and distribution costs.
5. Distribution
5.1 Instruct-ERIC subscribes to the principle of open science for publicly funded research and expects that the materials produced from non-commercial Instruct-ERIC activity are made publicly available on request taking into account the requirement to protect any IP arising from Instruct-ERIC activity.
5.2 Instruct-ERIC activity should be acknowledged in the distributed material by the following statement:
"This work benefited from access to the [Name of Institute or facility], an Instruct-ERIC Centre. Financial support was provided by [funding source 1], [funding source 2] and [funding source 3]."
Please quote "Instruct-ERIC (PID XXXX)" as a funding source if you received Instruct access funding, citing your Proposal ID (PID) which you were given in email correspondence from Instruct-ERIC.
