Terms and Refund Policy

Participation in any ResearchCenter manuscript workflow does not guarantee authorship, co-authorship, author order, journal acceptance, or publication.

Authorship is determined solely by verified intellectual contribution, review of the final manuscript, approval of the final version, and accountability for the work, in line with established research authorship standards.

Where a contribution does not meet the authorship standard, ResearchCenter may instead recognize the contribution through acknowledgment, contributor records, or internal participation records as appropriate.

ResearchCenter does not guarantee that any manuscript, paper, or deliverable will be accepted by, or published in, any journal, outlet, or repository.

Editorial and publication decisions rest entirely with the relevant publisher, journal, or outlet. Timelines, revision requests, and rejection are part of normal scholarly publishing and do not constitute a failure of service by ResearchCenter.

Contributors must submit original, properly cited, and verifiable material, and must engage in good faith with assigned tasks, deadlines, and review steps.

Contributors are responsible for the accuracy of personal information, affiliation, ORCID, and disclosed conflicts of interest, and for reviewing and approving final manuscript versions where required.

Misrepresentation of identity, contribution, qualifications, or affiliation may result in removal from a manuscript workflow without refund and may be reported where appropriate.

ResearchCenter delivers research services to companies, government agencies, NGOs, universities, healthcare organizations, energy organizations, and other institutional clients under custom scopes of work agreed during the consultation and proposal workflow.

Deliverables, methodology, timelines, confidentiality, data handling, intellectual property, and acceptance criteria are defined per engagement and recorded in the engagement contract for each project.

Changes to scope, methodology, or deliverables after engagement start are handled through a formal change-request process.

Research coordination and administrative service fees, where applicable, may be refundable only if a refund request is submitted in writing before onboarding, administrative review, manuscript coordination, contributor processing, or platform-based project processing has begun.

Once ResearchCenter has commenced onboarding, administrative processing, communication, manuscript coordination, editorial workflow support, contributor review, or any platform-based project processing, the fee becomes non-refundable.

Refunds will not be issued because a contributor fails to provide required information, fails to make a meaningful contribution, fails to respond to communication within reasonable timelines, is not approved for authorship, or because a journal rejects, delays, or requests revision of a manuscript.

Approved refunds are processed using the original payment method within a reasonable processing window after approval.

Refunds, milestone payments, scope adjustments, and engagement termination terms for organizational research services are governed by the specific scope of work and engagement contract executed for each project.

Where work has been performed, costs incurred, or deliverables produced up to the point of termination, those amounts remain payable in line with the engagement contract.

ResearchCenter handles personal and organizational data with confidentiality and applicable data protection standards.

Submitted information is used to coordinate research engagements, member workflows, and platform operations, and is not sold to third parties.

Client data, interview material, and proprietary findings collected under a corporate engagement are handled in line with the confidentiality terms of that engagement.