Universities and colleges

Workflow automation for universities and colleges

The legal work every institution repeats, done the same way every time. Research agreements, placements, IP deeds, approvals and waivers: staff and researchers self-serve the routine work, and the contracts and legal teams keep control of the language and the rules.

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The University of Melbourne logo
In production at the University of Melbourne since 2019
Research agreement
Approved language, ready to sign
Complex contract
Referred to the contracts team
Activity waiver
The right waiver for every activity

Where it fits

What universities run on Neota

Each one is a guided tool built from language the institution has already approved.

Research agreements

Research project, clinical trial, sub-award and platform agreements. Researchers self-serve an approved contract through to e-signature, and bespoke ones go for review.

Confidentiality and material transfer

Standard confidentiality and material transfer agreements with research partners, available across the university without a trip to Legal.

Student placements

Connected to your placement system. Each placement produces the host agreement, cohort schedules and, where needed, the student's IP undertaking.

IP assignment deeds

Generates the deed assigning a researcher's IP to the university and routes it for electronic signature.

Grant outcome notices

Connect the grant outcomes data and every researcher and department gets a personalised email with their result.

Activity waivers

The right liability waiver for a field trip, sport, travel or facilities hire, with each college seeing only its own records.

Also possible:
Policy guidance
Legal intake front door
Student-facing tools

How it works

From request to signed document in three steps

The same flow runs behind every tool, whether it's a research agreement, a student placement or an activity waiver.

1

Pick what you need

Staff and researchers choose the agreement, deed or waiver they need from a guided list. There's no template to hunt for and no ticket to raise with Legal.

2

Answer a few questions

Neota asks only what applies to the request and pulls the rest from your research management or placement system. The rules your legal team approved decide what goes into the document.

3

Sign, file and report

Routine documents are built from approved language and sent for e-signature. Anything bespoke or higher-value is referred to the contracts team, and every signed document is filed to records automatically.

Customer story

University of Melbourne: self-service for routine agreements, the contracts team for the complex ones

The University started with self-service research platform agreements in 2019. Every agreement used to go through the contracts team, even for the simplest projects. Today staff generate approved agreements themselves, and only the more complex, higher-value contracts go to the team.

4 to 8 weeks
faster on simpler research agreements
9
live applications
Research projects
Clinical trials
Collaboration and sub-award
Material transfer
Confidentiality
Platform
Student placements
IP assignment
Grant outcomes
Customer since 2019
The University of Melbourne
Live in production

Results at the University of Melbourne

2019
In production since
9
Live applications across research, IP and placements
13,000+
Agreements and documents generated a year
15,000+
Hours saved a year across business and legal teams

Aggregated across the applications the University has measured.

“We’ve run research agreements on Neota since 2019. Staff can self-serve and have low risk contracts executed in minutes, while Neota identifies more complex contracts and automatically refers these to our contracts team for support.”
The University of Melbourne logo
Frank Anastasopoulos
Director, Research Grants and Contracts, The University of Melbourne
Illustration of a laptop displaying a form with text fields and radio buttons, accompanied by a stopwatch, a ruler, a magnifying glass, and a document with a pie chart and text.
Biology field trip
Ready to sign
Activity and location
Coastal survey, Cape May
Participants
24 students, 2 staff
Risks that apply
Water
Travel
Equipment
Outdoor
Overnight
Built from approved clauses
Send for signature

For EIIA member colleges

The right waiver for every activity, in a few minutes

EIIA has worked with Neota to give its member colleges a guided way to produce activity waivers from language maintained by EIIA's counsel. Each college signs in with its own email domain and only sees its own waivers.

Describe the activity, the participants and the location
Pick the risks that apply from a pre-built list
Get a waiver built from approved clauses, ready to sign
Track issued waivers on the compliance dashboard (enhanced tier)
Sign up your college

Connected

Built into the systems you already run

Neota pulls the details from your research management or student placement platform, so nobody re-keys them into a Word template. Each agreement goes for signing through the university's existing e-signature account, and signed documents are filed to records management automatically, with Power BI reporting where you want it.

Connected workflow
Research or placement system
Approved agreement
E-signature
Records
Power BI

We also teach with Neota

Law schools use it in the classroom, and student teams build working tools for pro bono organisations, including at the UTS Law Tech Challenge for Social Justice.

Education and community programs

FAQ

Questions universities ask

What can universities automate with Neota?

The legal work they repeat: research project, clinical trial, sub-award and platform agreements, confidentiality and material transfer agreements, student placements, IP assignment deeds, grant outcome notices and activity waivers. Each one is a guided tool built from language the institution has already approved, so staff and researchers can self-serve without waiting on Legal.

How does research agreement automation work?

A researcher answers a short set of questions about the project and the partner. Neota pulls the remaining details from your research management system, builds the agreement from approved language and sends it for e-signature through your existing account. The signed agreement is filed to records management automatically.

Do complex agreements still go to our contracts team?

Yes. Neota identifies agreements that fall outside the approved rules, such as bespoke or higher-value contracts, and refers them to your contracts team for review. Routine agreements are executed in minutes, so the team's time goes to the work that needs it.

Does Neota connect to the systems we already use?

Yes. Neota pulls details from research management and student placement platforms, sends documents for signing through the university's existing e-signature account, files signed documents to records management and can feed Power BI reporting. Nobody re-keys details into a Word template.

How does Neota keep university data secure?

Neota is built for regulated environments, with enterprise-grade security, data residency controls and a full audit trail for every workflow. See how we handle security.

Who controls the language in the documents?

Your contracts and legal teams do. Every tool is built from wording and rules the institution has already approved, so staff and researchers can self-serve without drafting anything themselves, and the teams that own the language stay in control of it.

Bring Neota to your institution

Tell us which office you're in and we'll show you a working example built for it.

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