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To increase university–industry collaboration and research commercialisation, the Australian government recently introduced the Intellectual Property (IP) Framework, a set of online standard contracts. This follows a predecessor standard contract initiative, the IP Toolkit, which has not previously been evaluated. This paper aims to examine standard contracting in the innovation sector, tracing the policymaking behind the IP Toolkit using the lens of Macneil’s relational contract theory, to assess prospects of success for the new IP Framework, and similar initiatives in other jurisdictions.

This is a disciplined-configurative case study, drawing on qualitative secondary data analysis and applying Macneil’s relational contracting theory to guide case construction and generate hypotheses around likely success of standard contracting initiatives (stakeholder sentiment, stakeholder adoption). Within-case analysis process-traces development of the IP Toolkit, to discover what the policymakers wanted, knew and computed – and to detail observable implications Macneil’s theory predicts. Its themes are triangulated with multiple sources.

The case study, via Macneil’s theory, confirms the first hypothesis (resistant stakeholder sentiment) and partly validates the second hypothesis (low levels of adoption), demonstrating limited suitability of standard contracting in the dynamic and highly uncertain space of university–industry collaboration.

The study provides insights into the limited role that standard contracts can play in improving national collaborative research and development performance.

This is a novel theory-driven case study triangulated with previously unpublished data on the IP Toolkit’s website usage, and data from recent consultations on the new IP Framework. It has broader implications for other jurisdictions considering adoption of the standard contract model.

Using COVID-19 pandemic as a more immediate empirical reference, this paper aims to understand the biosecurity risks arising from tourist activities and, through a more prospective analysis, to consider the relevance of public health issues in the context of tourism-sustainability nexuses.

The text assumes a hybrid format, incorporating elements resulting from empirical research and essayistic viewpoints. The collection of empirical elements was based on documental research in several sources, such as newspapers, international institutions of an intergovernmental nature and the discussion forum of the travel platform TripAdvisor.

By assuming mobility and large agglomerations of people from different origins, mass tourism has fostered multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 and the rapid global spread of contagion chains. The pandemic clearly exemplified the responsibility of tourism in the dispersion of biotic agents with severe ecological, economic, social and public health repercussions. It is, therefore, urgent to rethink the tourism growth trajectory and more effectively consider the biosecurity risks associated with mobility in discussions on tourism and sustainability. At the same time, tourism must be delineated in terms of the great aims of sustainability, and this transversal purpose to which it contributes should be considered an intrinsic condition of its own sectorial sustainability as an economic activity.

The biosecurity challenges posed by mass tourism are a very topical issue, still little considered in sustainability policies and on which there is a marked deficit in scientific research.