How was the EBI contract developed and what was the timeline?
A. In response to a call for proposals, UC Berkeley submitted to BP on Nov. 24, 2006, a 90-page proposal for an Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) focused on finding more efficient and sustainable ways to produce biofuels for transportation. Once the selection of UC Berkeley’s proposal by BP over those of competitors was announced on Feb. 1, 2007, the proposal became the basis for formal contract negotiations among the EBI partner institutions – UC Berkeley, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and BP. These negotiations began the last week of June and concluded in mid-October. The number of partner institutions involved added to the complexity of negotiation since U.S. Department of Energy policies and differences between California and Illinois laws had to be addressed.
A. In response to a call for proposals, UC Berkeley submitted to BP on Nov. 24, 2006, a 90-page proposal for an Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) focused on finding more efficient and sustainable ways to produce biofuels for transportation. Once the selection of UC Berkeley’s proposal by BP over those of competitors was announced on Feb. 1, 2007, the proposal became the basis for formal contract negotiations among the EBI partner institutions – UC Berkeley, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and BP. These negotiations began the last week of June and concluded in mid-October. The number of partner institutions involved added to the complexity of negotiation since U.S. Department of Energy policies and differences between California and Illinois laws had to be addressed. Details of governance and management of the EBI and specific aspects of intellectual property (IP) management had to be agreed upon and captured i
