Advanced Education and Research

RBS has represented British Columbia’s largest university for more than 100 years, and also represents other post-secondary institutions and research organizations with respect to their research, educational and funding activities. The firm is deeply familiar with the legislative framework and policy processes in the field of education and research.

The Advanced Education and Research Group has provided advice to university presidents, senior administrators, and their in-house legal counsel. Its lawyers are experienced in meeting its clients’ diverse needs, including private and public universities and colleges, medical research agencies, institutes, foundations, genomics research agencies, and institutional research groups.

The Advanced Education and Research Group has specific experience in assisting institutional clients with a range of needs including:

• A broad range of institutional policies and procedures
• Enforcing campus regulations
• Strategies for the effective commercialization of inventions and technologies developed at an institution
• Drafting inter-institutional collaboration and research agreements
• Drafting commercially sponsored research collaborations
• Public and private funding and sponsorship agreements
• Competitive procurement of products and services through requests for proposals and public tender
• Planning and implementing on-campus real estate development for institutional use, commercial use and market housing
• Negotiating and drafting construction agreements
• Drafting regulations and legislative amendments to the legislation governing universities and other institutions involved in advanced education and research
• Establishing spin-off corporations and affiliates, as well as property and investment trusts
• Structuring provincial, national and international affiliations
• Establishing public/private partnerships (P3s)
• Establishing scholarships, bursaries and other programs that provide financial assistance to students
• Protecting and managing an institution’s intellectual property, including trademarks, copyright and other intellectual property rights
• Acting as “general counsel” to universities and research institutions on a broad spectrum of legal issues that are unique to these institutions

The Advanced Education and Research Group understands how universities and research institutions work and the environment within which they operate because its lawyers have immersed themselves in these institutions through secondments, as well as being available at all stages of discovery. RBS understands the constraints placed on these institutions by public funding and accountability, their unique governance models, and the culture of academic freedom within which they operate.