Terms of Service

1. About these Terms

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") govern your access to and use of Symposed, including symposed.org and any related web or mobile application that links to these Terms (the "Service"). The Service is operated by Symposed ("Symposed", "we", "us" or "our").

By creating an account, clicking to accept these Terms, or using the Service, you agree to these Terms and the policies incorporated into them, including our Acceptable Use Policy, Community Guidelines, Safety and Reporting Policy, and Research Integrity, Authorship and Collaboration Guidelines. Our Privacy Notice explains how we process personal information.

If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. Eligibility and age

You must be at least 18 years old and legally capable of entering into these Terms. The Service is primarily designed for students, healthcare professionals, academics and others genuinely seeking or offering research and related project collaboration opportunities. We may require information reasonably necessary to assess eligibility or verification status.

The Service is currently focused on the United Kingdom. If you access it from another country, you are responsible for considering any local requirements that apply to your own conduct.

3. What Symposed is - and is not

Symposed is an online intermediary that helps users advertise and discover projects, find collaborators, apply to opportunities and communicate. Symposed is not:

• an employer, employment agency, university, NHS body, research sponsor, Research Ethics Committee, clinical governance body, journal or professional regulator;

• a party to research, supervision, authorship, employment, volunteer, payment or collaboration arrangements made between users;

• a secure patient-data, clinical-record or research-dataset hosting service;

• a provider of medical, clinical, research-governance, career, legal or financial advice; or

• a guarantor of project quality, supervision, authorship, publication, presentation, portfolio points, career outcomes or the conduct of another user.

4. Accounts and account security

• You must provide accurate, current information and must not impersonate another person or create a misleading professional identity.

• You may not sell, transfer or share your account, create accounts to evade restrictions, or use multiple accounts to manipulate applications, reviews, badges or messaging limits.

• You are responsible for keeping your login credentials secure and for activity carried out through your account, except to the extent caused by our own breach of duty.

• Tell us promptly via our contact form if you suspect unauthorised access.

• We may ask you to re-verify information where reasonably necessary for safety, integrity or legal compliance.

5. Verification and badges

Symposed may offer institutional-email verification, profile verification, beginner or new-researcher indicators, mentor recognition, reliability indicators and other badges. Verification confirms only the limited matter described by the relevant verification method. For example, control of an institutional email address does not guarantee a person's current role, good standing, authority to supervise, competence, or the legitimacy of a project.

Badges and verification are not professional accreditation, endorsement or a warranty by Symposed. We may change criteria, request further evidence, correct errors or remove a badge where appropriate.

6. Application limits, credits and fair-use controls

To protect project quality and reduce spam, Symposed may limit project applications, message requests, active project matches or other activities. Limits and eligibility are displayed in the Service and may vary between users, account types, tests or time periods.

We may change limits, refill rules, credits, incentives or fair-use controls based on platform usage, supply, safety, abuse patterns and user feedback. Free credits or rewards have no cash value, are non-transferable, may expire or be removed for misuse, and do not create a permanent entitlement to a particular limit or feature.

You must not circumvent limits by creating duplicate accounts, coordinating account use, using automated tools or otherwise manipulating the Service.

7. Project listings and applications

Any eligible user may be able to post a project or collaboration opportunity, subject to the features and rules available to their account. A project may have a confirmed supervisor, may be seeking a supervisor, may be student-led, or may be seeking collaborators for an existing project. You must describe the status honestly.

• You must have the right and, where necessary, permission to advertise the opportunity and to use the name, title, institution or contact information of any supervisor or third party you mention.

• You must not state or imply that ethics, governance, audit registration, institutional approval, funding or supervision has been obtained unless that statement is accurate.

• Experience requirements, expected workload, location, deadlines, role descriptions and any compensation should be described honestly and updated if circumstances materially change.

• Authorship positions or publication outcomes must not be sold or guaranteed regardless of contribution. Expected authorship or contributorship can be discussed, but final credit remains subject to actual contributions and applicable journal, institutional and research-integrity rules.

• Applicants must apply in good faith only where they have a genuine interest and realistic capacity to contribute.

• Listers should close or update a listing when positions are filled and should not intentionally keep applicants waiting using misleading project status information.

The more detailed Project Posting and Application Guidelines form part of these Terms.

8. Messaging requests and private messages

Symposed may allow a user to send a message request to another user who becomes visible through a project or other permitted part of the Service, even where the message is not tied to a specific project. The recipient may accept or reject the request.

• A rejected or unanswered request does not give you permission to repeatedly contact the recipient through other accounts, projects or channels.

• Do not send spam, mass solicitations, irrelevant recruitment, marketing or repeated unwanted messages.

• Private messages are not public, but they are not a secure clinical-data channel and must not contain patient-identifiable information, confidential clinical information or research datasets containing personal data.

• We may access or review message content where reasonably necessary to investigate a report, protect users or the Service, comply with law, or establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

• We may restrict messaging, block a connection, suspend an account or take other proportionate action for abuse.

9. Sharing contact details and moving off-platform

You may voluntarily share your own phone number, email address or other contact details with another user in a private message or through a contact-sharing feature. You are responsible for deciding whether to disclose your contact details.

You must not share another person's private contact information or personal data unless you have their permission or another lawful authority to do so. You must not scrape, compile, sell, reuse or add Symposed contact details to marketing lists without a lawful basis and any required consent.

Once users move a conversation to WhatsApp, email, Teams or another external service, that external communication is outside Symposed's technical control and is subject to the other service's terms and privacy practices. Symposed is not a party to off-platform conversations or arrangements. However, serious off-platform conduct connected to Symposed may still be relevant to our moderation decisions where it presents a genuine safety, fraud or platform-integrity concern and sufficient evidence is provided.

10. Patient data, confidential information and research data

You must not upload, paste or transmit through Symposed patient-identifiable information, confidential patient information, clinical records, identifiable case narratives, patient images, research datasets containing personal data, or confidential NHS, university or healthcare information. This applies everywhere on the Service, including private messages.

Do not treat a warning, filter or moderation feature as confirmation that content is safe, anonymous or lawful. You remain responsible for complying with professional, institutional, research-governance and confidentiality obligations that apply to you.

11. Research ethics, integrity and approvals

Users are responsible for determining and obtaining all approvals, sponsorship, governance, audit registration, data access permissions, consent and supervision required for their project. Symposed does not review or approve research protocols and does not determine whether an activity is research, audit, service evaluation or quality improvement.

You must not use the Service to facilitate fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, purchased or honorary authorship, paper mills, ghost research, fraudulent ethics claims, manipulated reviews or other research misconduct. Our Research Integrity, Authorship and Collaboration Guidelines form part of these Terms.

12. User content and licence to Symposed

You retain ownership of content you create and post to the Service. You grant Symposed a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, display, format and technically process your content only as reasonably necessary to operate, secure, improve and promote the functionality of the Service, comply with law and exercise our rights under these Terms. This licence includes use by our service providers acting on our behalf.

Where content is public, you understand that other users may view it. We do not claim ownership of your research ideas, protocols, manuscripts or intellectual property merely because you describe a project on Symposed.

You represent that you have the rights and permissions needed to post your content and that doing so does not unlawfully infringe intellectual property, privacy, confidentiality or other rights.

When you delete content or close an account, our licence ends when the content is deleted from active systems, except to the extent limited copies remain in backups, moderation/legal records, content shared with other users, or where retention is lawful and necessary.

13. Reviews, reputation and reliability indicators

Reviews must be based on genuine direct project experience and must be honest, relevant and expressed in good faith. You must not buy, sell, trade, coerce or fabricate reviews; retaliate against a user for an honest review; or use multiple accounts to manipulate reputation features.

Scores, badges and reliability indicators are platform signals, not professional references or guarantees of future conduct. Criteria may change. We may remove or restrict content that breaches our Reviews, Reputation, Badges and Verification Policy.

14. Advertising, sponsorship and external links

Symposed may display advertising, sponsorship or links to third-party websites and services. Sponsored content should be identified where required. An advertisement or link does not mean Symposed endorses the advertiser, product, course, service, conference or claim. Your dealings with third parties are between you and them.

Advertising and tracking technologies are handled as described in our Privacy Notice and Cookie and Similar Technologies Policy.

15. Fees and future paid features

The Service may be free at launch. We may introduce optional paid, premium, promoted or institutional features in the future. We will not charge you merely because you previously created a free account without first presenting the price and purchase terms and obtaining the action required to enter the paid arrangement.

Where a paid feature is offered, the checkout or purchase terms will explain the price, billing frequency, renewal, cancellation and any refund or cooling-off rights required by applicable consumer law. Your statutory rights are not affected.

16. Moderation, suspension and termination

We may investigate reports and use proportionate measures including warnings, reduced functionality, content restriction, content removal, message restrictions, verification removal, suspension or account termination. We may act urgently where we reasonably consider this necessary to address illegal content, safety, confidentiality, fraud, security or serious platform-integrity risks.

We aim to apply our policies consistently but must consider the context and information available at the time. Our Safety, Content Reporting, Moderation and Appeals Policy explains reporting and complaints routes.

You may close your account through the Service where available or by contacting us. Account closure is subject to the retention described in our Privacy Notice.

17. Symposed intellectual property

The Symposed name, branding, software, design, database structure and content created by Symposed are owned by us or our licensors and are protected by applicable intellectual property law. These Terms give you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive right to use the Service for its intended purpose. You may not copy, reverse engineer, scrape, resell or exploit the Service except where law expressly permits and cannot be excluded by contract.

18. Availability and changes to the Service

The Service is an evolving early-stage platform. We may add, remove, test, limit or change features, application limits, ranking methods, badges, eligibility criteria or availability. We do not promise uninterrupted or error-free operation. We may suspend the Service for maintenance, security or operational reasons.

Do not use Symposed as the sole storage location for protocols, data, manuscripts, approvals, contributor agreements or other critical project records. In particular, research data and patient data must not be stored on Symposed.

19. No guarantee of users, projects or outcomes

User content and project listings are created by users. Although we may offer verification and moderation tools, we do not guarantee that a user is who they claim to be, has authority to supervise, will complete work, will communicate reliably, or will honour an authorship expectation. We do not guarantee the accuracy, legality, ethics, funding, approval status or quality of a project.

You are responsible for carrying out appropriate checks before committing time, sharing contact details, moving off-platform or undertaking project work. You should follow your institution's and profession's rules.

20. Our liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any other liability, right or remedy that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including mandatory data protection and consumer rights.

If you use the Service as a consumer, we are responsible for loss or damage that is a foreseeable result of our breach of these Terms or failure to use reasonable care and skill. We are not responsible for loss or damage that is not foreseeable.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Symposed is not responsible for losses arising primarily from: user-generated content; the acts or omissions of another user; project, supervision, authorship or publication disputes; research or institutional decisions; failure to obtain approvals; off-platform communications; third-party services; or a user's breach of professional, research, confidentiality or legal duties.

We do not accept responsibility for loss of a publication, authorship position, presentation, portfolio score, career opportunity, expected research outcome, or time spent on a project merely because a collaboration found through Symposed does not succeed.

If you use the Service wholly or mainly for business or professional purposes, then, to the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for loss of profit, revenue, business, anticipated savings, goodwill or indirect or consequential business loss.

21. Complaints and legal notices

Safety and moderation reports should use the in-product report function or our contact form. Data protection complaints should use our contact form. Defamation, copyright, privacy or other formal legal-content notices should be sent via our contact form and should follow our Legal Content Complaints and Notice-and-Takedown Procedure.

22. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the Service or law changes. We will update the effective date. If a change is material, we will provide reasonable notice through the Service or by email where appropriate. Continued use after the effective date of updated Terms means you accept them, except where the law requires a different form of consent or notice.

23. Governing law and courts

These Terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. If you are a consumer resident in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you retain any mandatory protections available under the law of your home jurisdiction and may be entitled to bring proceedings in your local courts. Nothing in these Terms deprives a consumer of mandatory legal protections that apply to them.

24. General terms

If a court finds part of these Terms unlawful or unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in effect. A delay in enforcing a right does not waive that right. We may transfer our rights and obligations in connection with a genuine business transfer or reorganisation, subject to applicable law. You may not transfer your account or rights under these Terms without our consent. Except where law provides otherwise, no person other than you and Symposed has a right to enforce these Terms under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

25. Contact

Symposed operator: Symposed

General support: our contact form

Legal notices: our contact form