Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

The purpose of an MOU is to outline intent of interactions between the parties to promote collaborative relationship building. The MOU is typically not legally binding and does not contain details of procedures such as ownership and management of intellectual properties. Since the MOU typically only conveys general intents without specifics, it should not be used as a final agreement and should be followed with the other types of legally binding agreements; containing details of procedures such as a Sponsored Research Agreement, a License Agreement, and an Inter-Institutional Agreement The MOU is usually an optional step but it can be an effective tool to move the discussions to the next step, especially for a large-scale project This type of document is also called a Letter of Intent.