[cycomanic]

I have first hand experience about Sweden, Germany, New Zealand and Australia.

In Sweden there is something called the teachers exemption which means even university teachers (as employees) will own their own IP, which is unusual (I think Italy has a similar provision).

For students they will in general own their own IP, that applies to graduate and undergraduate students.

The same rules for students apply to Australia and New Zealand, although there it depends on the scholarship/financing for graduate students. For large projects who finance PhD scholarships there is often a provision that IP is owned by the university (the same as employees), because there would often be a large number of co-inventors on patents for example. If there is to be some commercialisation you essentially want to avoid co- or unclear ownership.

For Germany I believe undergraduate students own their own IP, but graduate (PhD) students are typically university employees, so I'm not sure about the rules for them.

I've been told by university admin, that in general university agreements claiming rights on student IP would violate the law in most countries in Europe, because they would be agreements with a one-sided benefit, i.e. the student gives something up without getting something in return. This essentially the same reason why non-competes are generally not valid in Europe either, unless you are being paid while you can't work.