19 July 2022
Today the EPO has published four research reports developed by leading European universities and institutions with funding from the EPO Academic Research Programme (ARP). The research projects were awarded in 2019, receiving grants totalling €300 000.
The completed research projects addressed a diverse range of topics, such as
The grant holders have been interviewed about their main research results and implications for policymakers. These engaging interviews will be released as a series of podcasts called "Research into patents" as of September. Stay tuned!
In response to the 2021 call, five projects have been proposed by the ARP Scientific Committee, which will benefit from grants totalling €600 000 under the ARP framework which aims at promoting primarily collaborative research. These projects will report in between two and three years' time and aim to investigate, i.a. how scientific clusters signal their later impact on technological developments, the use of deep learning to trace the flow of knowledge from science to technology, visual and multimodal patent search, and digital training systems for intellectual property.
The EPO launched the Academic Research Programme in 2017 to encourage more research into the role of patents in the European economy and to promote the sharing of research results. The programme complements the EPO's role in disseminating patent information, for example through its worldwide patent database Espacenet, and in facilitating patent analytics through tools such as PATSTAT. It is also designed to develop fruitful contacts between academic researchers and the many EPO staff who have an interest in such interactions.
Last year the EPO launched its call for proposals for the ARP in a revamped version. With this new scheme, the EPO will support collaborative research with scientific partner institutions, which can benefit from a wider scope, bigger budget and longer duration. The ARP foresees closer interaction between researchers and staff from across the EPO.
