GUIDELINES - Important legal/sponsoring guidelines for interdisciplinary projects

1. For who?

2. Hybrid financial structure of MAKE projects

3. Things to know when looking for sponsors

4. Three-party contract templates for sponsors

5. Donation letter for sponsors

6. Specific to IT and software providers

7. Prospects forbidden to contact

8. Workflow

9. Useful documents to download

This page is concerning student managers and supervisors of MAKE interdisciplinary projects and provides important legal guidelines to consider when managing an interdisciplinary project funded by public money, especially when it comes to engaging with external partnerships.

The following EPFL services validated this document:

• Student affairs (associations)
• Financial services
• The Research office
• Philanthropy

Before anything else, it is important to understand that MAKE projects have a particular financial structure. These projects are always involving an EPFL laboratory/unit but sometimes they also involve a student association. This associative structure is particularly key when the teams get bigger in order to provide the students with leadership and autonomy.

This hybrid format (academic/associative) is reflected in the financial structure of an interdisciplinary project with two different financial entities:

1. An EPFL fund - under the supervision of the supervising laboratory
2. A bank or postal account - under the supervision of the student association's committee

Each of these funds can be used for different objectives:

1. The EPFL fund can be used for:
   1. Pay for EPFL internal services (professional workshops, reprography etc..)
   2. Pay for consumables in the makerspaces SPOT and SKIL
   3. Pay for the salary of supervisors and pedagogical related supervision
   4. Receive the support of EPFL via the MAKE fund
   5. Receive the support of important sponsors

1. The association's bank (or postal account) can be used for:
   1. Pay for pizzas and beers (or more generally events for team building, recruitment of new students etc..)
   2. Pay for communication related activities - promoting the project via a website for example or any other content used to promote the project
   3. Pay for associative related matters
   4. Cover project-related expenses, such as consumables, if managing these costs is too burdensome for the supervising laboratory

The general rules to follow before engaging in a partnership with external institutions:

1. Please avoid contacting the sponsors already supporting the MAKE program (therefore indirectly supporting your project)
2. All sponsors must be selected in compliance with the EPFL Global Ethics & Partnership (GEP) Guidelines, ensuring ethical standards, reputational integrity, and alignment with EPFL policies.

1. Below you will find wording prepared by the Philanthropy team to share with your sponsors, if needed, to explain the new signature process applicable to sponsorship contracts ≥ CHF 5,000 and transferred to the EPFL fund:
   • “EN: Following clarifications on EPFL’s internal procedures, tripartite sponsorship agreements for MAKE Projects (sponsor, student association, and EPFL) amounting to CHF 5,000 or more are now approved via triple signatures for the EPFL: the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Director of Development, and the Professor supervising the project.This process applies not only to student projects but is an integral part of the School’s regulations governing all forms of sponsorship. Its purpose is to ensure greater transparency regarding EPFL’s funding sources and to guarantee the requisite due diligence in the assessment of partnerships entered into with the institution.”
   • “FR: Suite à des clarifications sur les procédures internes de l’EPFL, les contrats tripartites de patronage des projets MAKE (sponsor, association estudiantine et EPFL) d’un montant égal ou supérieur à CHF 5'000 font désormais l’objet d’une triple signature EPFL : le·la Vice-président·e académique, le·la Directeur·trice du Développement, ainsi que le·la Professeur·e encadrant le projet. Ce processus ne s’applique pas qu’aux projets d'étudiants mais fait partie du règlement de l’école pour toute forme de sponsoring. L’objectif est d’assurer une meilleure visibilité des sources de financement de l’EPFL et de garantir la diligence requise dans l’évaluation des partenariats engagés avec l’institution.”

Use the existing template for sponsoring: MAKE template sponsoring contract This template can be used to settle a partnership between the project (supervising laboratory and student association) and an external entity. It is not intended to be adapted but if modifications are necessary please contact mailto:make@epfl.ch. Once the partnership is signed by the three parties it can be associated to the transfer demand so that the EPFL financial services can validate the transfer without any overhead or VAT.

The general rules:

1. The sponsor must be disinterested from results and Intellectual Property
2. The logo of the sponsor can be displayed on a prototype
3. The general image of the sponsor can be promoted but specific publicity for a specific product is forbidden (no active publicity)
4. Sponsors can be invited for events and meet students involved in the MAKE project
5. This is used only to transfer money on the EPFL fund and cannot be used to transfer money on the student association's bank account.

• If it is less than 50k CHF, the money can be transferred to the association's bank account.
• If it is at least 50k CHF, the money has to be transferred to the project's EPFL fund.

The donation letter: MAKE template donation letter can be used to settle a partnership between the project (supervising laboratory and student association) and an external entity without counterparts. Please contact mailto:make@epfl.ch if you need advice or a review of your modifications.

The general rules:

1. The donor must be disinterested from results and Intellectual Property
2. The logo of the sponsor can be displayed on a prototype
3. The general image of the donor can be promoted but specific publicity for a specific product is forbidden (no active publicity)
4. Donors can be invited for events and meet students involved in the MAKE project
5. The same rules apply to donation letters as to sponsorship contracts, depending on the amount of support.

• If it is less than 50k CHF, the money can be transferred to the association's bank account.
• If it is at least 50k CHF, the money has to be transferred to the project's EPFL fund.

For sponsoring related to software, you can use similar sponsoring templates as above but it is important to contact the Software Asset Managers (SAM) at EPFL. They will be able to help you to negotiate with software providers or potentially provide you with the software you need because EPFL might already possess a license you can use.

Email address to contact before discussing with private software providers and to include in every ongoing discussions : sam.dsi@epfl.ch

The MAKE program already receives the support from different prospects. You can see the updated list of prospects that you should not contact https://make.epfl.ch/support-make.

As of September 2024, three donations are supporting MAKE and all the interdisciplinary projects:

1. The Domaine de Vilette foundation
2. The Banzil panzer trust
3. The Leister foundation

1. EPFL GEP Guidelines 2. MAKE sponsoring guidelines 3. EPFL e-sign procedure

• MAKE template sponsoring contract
• MAKE template donation letter
• Contact to include when discussing with software providers: sam.dsi@epfl.ch
• Flux financiers entre fonds EPFL spécifique du projet et le compte bancaire postal de l'association
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