SU Innovation & Commercialisation’s Trade Mark Office, in partnership with the intellectual property law firm, Von Seidels, hosted a half-day workshop at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) on 18 February 2026. The workshop focused on determining sponsorship valuation. Several key Stellenbosch University (SU) role players, including staff from SU Legal Services, Corporate Communication and Marketing, Maties Sport, SUNCOM, Factory 209, and Development and Alumni Relations Division attended. 

SU environments increasingly face challenges in accurately determining the monetary value attached to partners’ sponsorships. Specifically, and in the absence of a standardised, institutional framework, it becomes difficult to equate a sponsor's financial contribution with the level of brand exposure they expect from SU in return. 

The goal of this workshop was to discuss and develop practical tools and approaches to solve this "equitable equation" for ensuring that both US and its partnering sponsors receive fair value. Insights gained from stakeholders during this workshop are to inform a regulatory framework that would support SU’s trade mark policy provisions, as well as facilitate further sponsorship negotiations. This framework would potentially establish a tiered approach, whereby the monetary value of a sponsorship would be determinant of the channels for and levels of brand exposure a sponsor would be permitted to have access to.    

Once the framework has been drafted and reviewed by key stakeholders, the Trade Mark Office intends to follow the institutional approval route to include this framework in SU’s trade mark policy provisions. In this way, SU is not only protecting and valuing its own trade mark rights, but also building more transparent and attractive investment opportunities for its partners.

Click here for more information about the Trade Mark Office.