Consulting FAQ's

Each contract is different but when you are engaged to advise or consult on work related to your subject matter at AUT, that’s considered University consulting.

If the work involves using your existing knowledge. its consulting. If you need to discover, explore, or develop anything, then it’s research.

AUT Ventures have assisted with consulting engagements that include: technical advice, data collection and analysis, new product development, testing, literature reviews, policy advice and analysis, design peer reviews, expert witness, clinical studies, lab analysis, experiment design, strategic advice, engineering, advisory board members.

Consulting engagements often involve multiple staff members and sometimes students too.

If you’re interested in offering your expertise to industry there are many ways you can put yourself out there, for example:

• Media coverage, Undergrad placements and projects, Postgrad projects, create a Research Elements profile, industry conferences, industry engagement teams, or you can register with GETS (Government Electronic Tenders Service)

Just remember that line management approval is required for consulting engagements, however you do have the right to consult if it doesn’t interfere with your "day job".

Our Contracts Manager, Tom Davidson, is here to make consulting with industry as painless as possible. He can help with:

• Creditor Management: invoicing, debt collection
• Contracting: negotiation, intellectual property, confidentiality, publishing, pricing
• Infrastructure: AUT brand, labs, subcontracts, Ras
• Insurance: Professional Liability, Indemnity
• Project and Cash Management
• Tax: filing and payment

AUT Ventures coordinates and manages over $1M in consulting fees spread across 100 individual engagements with more than 140 organisations across Aotearoa and the globe.

Typically 85% of consulting fees flows back to AUT and 15% is retained by the academic staff member.

For contracts less than $50,000, we charge 15% commission.
For contracts more than $50,000, we charge 10% commission.

As the saying goes, no job is too big or too small. We’ve coorindated consulting contracts that range from as little as $125 up to $900,000!

We can be as involved (or be in the background) as you want us to be. There are three payment routes:

• AUT RPA (untaxed) – please note that an AUT-wide RPA Policy cam into effect on 1 August 2024 – this applies to 85% of contracts
• Personal bank account through AUT Ventures payroll (withholding tax by AUTV) – this applies to 10% of contracts
• The consultant’s business by invoice (tax is your responsibility) – this applies to 5% of contracts

Research is possible via AUT Ventures and generally means we are the single point of contact for the Client. ERI tracking is transparent for the Client, equivalent to any other research income.

Working with Te Kahui Poipoi Rangahau (The Research Office) is the preferred path for research contracts.