The Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation (QPI) team offers various services and resources to Queen’s Faculties and Academic Departments.
If you require help with more than one item below, please fill in our Queen's Partnerships and Innovation Contact Form .
Join our QPI SciTech News Digest to stay up to date on opportunities through Queen's Partnerships and Innovation.
Strategic partnerships
The QPI team is outward facing and has a mandate to be a responsive institutional front door to industry and not-for-profit organizations that are seeking interactions and collaborations with Queen’s and our research community. The QPI team also helps Faculties, Departments, Research Centres and Institutes, and faculty members to advance strategic initiatives and relationships with prospective and current partners.
The QPI team participates in several strategic consortia and can advise you of resources and/or opportunities to engage with member organizations.
To see a listing of our memberships, visit our Memberships in Strategic Consortia page
In partnership with the Kingston Economic Development Corporation and relevant organizations in Syracuse, the QPI team facilitates discussions between Queen's faculty members wishing to explore and build cross-border research collaborations with the State University of New York (SUNY) campuses, including SUNY Upstate Medical University and the Upstate University Hospital, and supports or connects startups and SMEs looking to establish business relationships or premises in Upper State New York or in Eastern Ontario.
Contact us to learn more about the Kingston-Syracuse Pathway
Relationship building
The QPI team can often facilitate introductions between Queen's Faculties, Departments, and faculty members and external organizations.
Contact us to discuss your areas of interest and collaboration objectives
The QPI team can help Faculties, Departments, Research Centres and Institutes, and-or faculty members to coordinate and host strategic campus visits and meetings with industry partners to showcase Queen’s research strengths and to explore opportunities to establish research collaborations.
Contact us to request assistance with planning and-or hosting strategic campus visits and meetings
Funding and talent
There are several agency-funded programs supporting collaborations between academia and for-profit partners as well as not-for-profit partners. QPI works closely with colleagues in Research Services to advance the development of proposals, scopes of work, budgets, and collaboration agreements.
The QPI team can help Departments and faculty members to identify and pursue strategic internship opportunities for graduate students.
Legal services
The Research Legal Services is responsible for the primary coordination, negotiation, and administration of research-related agreements for Queen's University and the affiliated teaching hospitals.
Please note that faculty members are not authorized by the university to sign research- or innovation-related agreements. For more information about this policy, please visit the Research Contracts page on the University Secretariat and Legal Counsel website .
As Research Centres and Institutes, faculty members, post-docs and students become more entrepreneurial and more focused on opportunities to commercialize intellectual property, and-or may be working in or managing a busy laboratory with multiple students and projects including projects with industry partners, it is important to document roles, responsibilities, and rights of the university, faculty members and students. These arrangements can be novel as well as complex.
Contact Research Legal Services to discuss your specific situation and objectives.
Research Legal Services has lawyers on staff who can provide Faculties, Departments, Research Centres and Institutes, and-or faculty members with legal counsel related to emerging or existing research collaborations involving Queen’s and other parties.
Contact Research Legal Services to discuss your specific questions
Intellectual property and commercialization
The QPI team has patent agents and other staff members who can provide advice on patentability, commercialization, and other intellectual property matters. The QPI team is responsible for drafting, filing, and prosecuting patent applications, managing patent portfolios, and providing strategies for intellectual property protection.
Contact us to discuss your inventions and other intellectual property
As required of QUFA, should faculty members wish to commercialize an invention, they need to complete and submit a disclosure form that documents a specific invention which helps the QPI team with an evaluation of the commercial potential.
Please visit our Inventions and Intellectual Property page for these forms.
The QPI team has experienced personnel to advise on commercialization strategies including protection of inventions, licensing, option agreements, trade secrets, the creation of startups, the Foundry program and incubation and acceleration programs.
Contact us to discuss technology commercialization objectives and opportunities
Discoveries and inventions usually follow one of the two following commercialization paths: a license to an established company or a license to a newly formed startup company.
Contact us to discuss licensing strategies.
Communications and marketing
The QPI team can help Research Centres and Institutes and-or faculty members raise awareness about project outcomes and bring together people and resources to help reach next steps and increase project impacts.
Contact us to discuss knowledge mobilization objectives and opportunities
Using a variety of communication channels, the QPI team promotes successful research collaborations which we help to establish and/or facilitate and works with University Relations, Faculties, Departments and/or faculty members and partners to identify and publicize the objectives, outcomes and impacts of research partnerships and specific collaborations.
The QPI team also promotes the accomplishments of entrepreneurs, startups, and SMEs with which we are working in Eastern Ontario. In addition to written communications, the QPI team utilizes our extensive innovation ecosystem to conduct outreach activities to industry and partners in the community.
Workshops and events
Upon request or invitation, the QPI team delivers brief training sessions for Departments and associated faculty members, and coordinates and delivers interactive sector-specific workshops to facilitate engagement between faculty members and industry.
Contact us to discuss your needs and interests
The QPI team and partners offer numerous programs, workshops, and events for entrepreneurs, startups and SMEs in Eastern Ontario. To learn about upcoming workshops and events available via the QPI team, visit our Workshops and Events page.
QPI designs and delivers bespoke versions of its Market-Focused Research Workshop Series, upon request, to cohorts of faculty members, post-doctoral fellows or graduate students, who are interested in knowledge mobilization and commercialization of research outcomes. The Workshop Seriescovers topics such as market/technology assessments, design thinking, intellectual property, effective communication, and commercialization strategies to support research, research partnerships, and commercialization/startup formation activities.
To learn more and apply, visit the Market-Focused Research Workshop Series page
The Market-Focused Research (Health) program is designed for faculty members, post-doctoral fellows or graduate students, and who are interested in translational life sciences research and its commercialization. The program emphasizes gaining an understanding of the needs of industry and customers, incorporating possible solutions to satisfy those needs into the earliest stages of research, which can significantly improve commercial potential.
Participants will learn skills related to market/technology assessment, design thinking, intellectual property, communication, and strategies/considerations for technology commercialization. Unique aspects of healthcare commercialization will be discussed including navigating regulatory complexity, quality control, and conducting clinical trials.
To learn more and apply, visit the Market-Focused Research program page
Startups
The QPI team offers resources to assist eligible startups, founded by faculty members, post-docs, and-or students, with an invention disclosure, intellectual property management strategies, startup formation, incubation and acceleration programs, and connections to local partners in the innovation ecosystem.
Please visit our page for entrepreneurs, startups and small- to medium-sized enterprises.