Dear Colleagues:

As our faculty members' reputations grow, they are
increasingly called upon to "team" with local contractors to
develop competitive proposals, generally for the federal
government.  We enter into "Teaming Agreements" with these
companies and make every effort to include language in those
agreements that commits them, at least in "good faith," to
fund our university's efforts if the application is
successful.

We have heard on a number of occasions from faculty who feel
that they have been "used" by these kinds of arrangements,
when the work was funded but the company was later unwilling
or unable to support our particular statement of work.  This
has caused some hard feelings.  We want to support these
collaborative efforts, as there may be potential for
lucrative funding for our faculty.

We are considering some alternate language suggestions for
future "Teaming Agreements," in the hopes that we can
minimize the cases in which our faculty's contributions go
unrewarded.  Have any of you run into this kind of
situation, and, if so, how have you handled it?  If anyone
has some more definitive language that they have used in
"Teaming Agreements," our research office would certainly be
happy to see it.

Thank you for your assistance.

Ellen Reinsch Friese

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