“I know that I can leave all the administrative, legal, contractual and financial aspects to Imperial Consultants and concentrate on the actual scientific consulting.”
—Professor Andrew Rice, Faculty of Medicine
You deliver the solutions – we do the rest.
When you have been approached to carry out a piece of consultancy work, we recommend contacting Imperial Consultants before agreeing rates or other details with your prospective client. Here’s an overview of how Imperial Consultants can help you:
- Due diligence. Before even moving onto the next stage, we will conduct due diligence on the client to ensure the project complies with any Imperial policies, there’s no reputational risk – and their credit rating suggests they can pay for services rendered
- Scope the project. We help you to define deliverables, a schedule, personnel, facilities and dependencies – making sure your expectations and the clients are aligned. We also negotiate your fees, based on market rates, and help calculate other costs for the project budget.
- Source your team or facilities. If you require additional personnel, or skillsets outside your own, we can help you identify other academics to join your team. Imperial facilities can be used in consulting work, subject to agreement with the department in question, and usually in exchange for a fee.
- Secure contracts. We then negotiate a contract with the client that protects you, Imperial and any existing/foreground intellectual property. We ensure you understand any legal implications of the project such as data use, ownership and use of intellectual property created – or non-disclosure agreements. We also ‘contract with’ anyone else in the team (including third parties from outside the College if required).
- Protection with professional indemnity insurance. We provide this to cover your work on the project, unless you are operating through your own company.
- Delivery and communications. You and your team (if there is one) deliver the work agreed under the terms of the contract, according to the schedule and specification. We provide templates for your reports and presentations, and support you and the client with any communications and promotion related to your work – including the option of a case study.
- Billing and payment. Once the client is happy with the work delivered Imperial Consultants will bill them and distribute the money to you, your colleagues and any third parties, according to the terms of the contract. If any Imperial facilities have been used, the agreed payment will be made to the department too. We also handle credit control.
To find out how we can support your consultancy project, or to explore possibilities for consulting in your area, get in touch with the Imperial Consultants team.