“We were excited that Radiant came to us from the outset with an innovative mindset and approach to solving our challenges. We didn't want to just add more man hours to the problems, we wanted someone who would provide thoughtful but realistic solutions with smart use of technology where it would really help. The team’s ability to transform our workflow has been amazing. Radiant are real partners to us and we’re excited to continue the innovation cycle with them!”
Graca Carvalho, Strategic Alliances Director, UCL Computer Science Department
The Challenge
The Strategic Alliances Team within UCL’s Computer Science Department handles more than 700 student project contracts each year, giving their Undergraduate and Masters students invaluable experience with leading financial, technology and healthcare institutions and building lasting relationships between the University and potential funders. With lengthy project terms that often caused unnecessary negotiations and delays, as well as a highly manual and administratively burdensome system for sending, tracking and signing agreements, the team decided to look at doing things differently. They were keen to build resourcing flexibility, accelerate contracting, gain deeper insight into market-standard legal policies for collaborations and ultimately achieve greater control.
The Solution
UCL asked Radiant Law to tame the overall contracting process for student projects and take on all of their contract negotiations, freeing up the team to focus on vital student and company relations.
In the first stage of work Radiant’s team was able to optimise UCL’s standard terms, taking them from 17 pages down to just three.
We then moved the signature process online using an industry-standard tech solution, which enabled UCL Computer Science to approve bulk sending of agreements and provided preliminary tracking.
In stage two, Radiant Law introduced docassemble, a document automation platform. This allowed for more structured bulk sending of agreements with a centralised data point. Docassemble also significantly improved reporting and tracking functions. Radiant Law now works in tandem with the UCL Computer Science Department to handle all contracting through this process, and weekly progress reports including valuable metadata are generated directly from the system.
The Impact
Providing space for the Strategic Alliances Team in UCL Computer Science to focus on key strategic relationships was a critical improvement, and knowledge is now captured and transferred for long-term internal upskilling.
The work done to ensure UCL’s terms are clear, simple and achieve their objectives, along with simplifying processes, has also radically improved UCL Computer Science’s time to close. In a recent round of student and company contracting, Radiant was able to close 92% of agreements within one month – a significant difference that enables the department to build stronger relationships for the future.
