Structuring the Partnership: Governance and Operating Model

Who it's for

The people who have to make a new research partnership work after the term sheet: sponsored programs and research office staff setting up a sponsored project, technology transfer officers structuring an option or license relationship, corporate alliance managers and R&D project leads who will sit on the steering committee, and the PI and the company's technical lead who will meet every month. Counsel is welcome in the room. It runs best as a mixed room, with both sides of one real partnership present.

The problem it fixes

Most partnership agreements say a great deal about intellectual property and almost nothing about who decides what when the plan changes, so scope changes, publication timing, and budget moves are decided by whoever is loudest or deferred until they become disputes. When the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities interviewed people at 22 universities and 16 companies for its report on university-industry partnerships (released January 2022), misaligned goals and incentives was the most frequently mentioned barrier, ahead of limited capacity to pursue and maintain relationships. This workshop designs the operating model (decision rights, roles, cadence, escalation) before the first steering committee meeting, so the agreement has something to govern.

Agenda

Four blocks of about 45 minutes.

• 0:00 to 0:45. Debrief of your Collaboration Design Canvas results. We discuss the canvas results and look at the blank cells, the cells each side filled differently, and the missing assumptions.
• 0:45 to 1:30. Decision rights and roles. For the eight or ten decisions that recur in a partnership (scope change, milestone acceptance, publication release, budget reallocation, adding a subcontractor, etc.), we assign who is responsible, who approves, who is consulted and who is informed.
• 1:30 to 2:15. Governance bodies and cadence. Who sits on the steering committee and what it owns, following Stoppels and colleagues (2026) on how a steering committee links the permanent organizations to the temporary project; the meeting rhythm by level; and the escalation path, from our default of one week to project leads, four weeks to the steering committee, and eight weeks to executives.
• 2:15 to 3:00. Preparing for counsel. We turn the morning's decisions into a one-page governance charter and a list of the business positions counsel will need from you, so the legal review starts with answers instead of questions.

What you bring

• Both sides' completed Collaboration Design Canvas results for one focal partnership, two at most
• The draft agreement or term sheet, if one exists, for context only
• The people who will own the decision rights: the PI, the sponsor's technical lead and whoever signs for each organization

What you leave with

• A decision-rights table with responsibility mapping agreed by both sides
• A steering committee charter covering composition, cadence, and what it owns
• An escalation path with named roles and time limits
• A one-page governance charter and a question list for counsel

Included instrument and pre-work

The Collaboration Design Canvas is issued at booking and completed two weeks before the session, each side independently for the focal partnership. The comparison in the first block is where the differences in expectation surface, and the rest of the session closes them. We design governance; we do not draft contract terms or give legal advice.

Logistics

Capped at 12 participants: J. Richard Hackman's team research found that coordination and candor erode once a working group climbs into the double digits (Hackman, interviewed in Harvard Business Review, 2009), and a working session needs everyone contributing, so larger teams add breakouts or split into additional sessions. Virtual by default, onsite available with travel billed at cost at federal per-diem rates. Series pricing is 15% off three or more workshops. We schedule within one business day of booking.

Frequently asked questions

Can we run it for a mixed university and company group?

Yes, and it can be even more effective this way. Both sides hear the same debrief in one room, see where their results already differ, and make decisions that would otherwise take months of meetings.

What if we already own the tool?

The instrument's price is not deducted from the workshop fee. We use your existing results as the pre-work, and you keep the second license for a second team or partnership.

Is this legal advice?

No. Helikon Labs is not a law firm and this is not legal advice. The session designs how the partnership operates: who decides, who meets, and how disagreements escalate. It does not draft or negotiate contract terms; the charter you leave with goes to your counsel as a business input, and where a governance choice has a legal consequence we add it to the question list.