The Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage (IPinCH) Project is a seven-year international research initiative based at Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia, Canada.
IPinCH is an international collaboration of scholars, students, heritage professionals, community members, policy makers, and Indigenous organizations.
[3] The Research Team[4] includes fifty-one leading scholars and professionals, one hundred and three Associates,[5] sixteen Fellows,[6] and thirty partnering organizations,[7] representing Canada, Australia, United States, New Zealand, Italy, Japan, South Africa, Germany, and Switzerland.
The project's organizational partners range from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), to Parks Canada, to Indigenous groups including the Penobscot Nation of Maine and the Moriori of Rekohu (Chatham Islands, New Zealand).
In the CBIs, communities determine the research goals, which form for the foundation for the initiative, including the practical and theoretical outputs.
After community review, the results of these initiatives will be made available to partner organizations and stakeholders, in order to assist them in refining their own policies and approaches.
This theme also amalgamates resources to help foster balanced and mutually beneficial relationships between academic and community researchers and promote fair and culturally-appropriate uses of intellectual property.