TeamResearch Terms of Service

Version 1.5 | Effective date: 2026-09-23

1. Who we are

TeamResearch (teamresearch.app) is a research project-management service operated by Adriano Quieti, trading as TeamResearch. “We”, “us” and “our” refer to that individual operator. No limited company is currently the contracting operator.

Contact: privacy@teamresearch.app

2. Agreement and eligibility

These Terms govern your use of TeamResearch, including the data-processing schedule below where applicable. Please read them before accepting them and using the application. If you do not agree, do not use the service. Our separate Privacy Policy explains personal-information handling; accepting these Terms is not blanket consent to that processing or to marketing.

You must be at least 18 and legally able to enter this agreement. Where local law requires additional authorisation, you must obtain it before use.

If you accept on behalf of a university, employer or other organisation, you must have authority to bind it. Otherwise you accept personally and must not represent that your organisation has approved the service. App ownership and permissions do not determine institutional ownership of research or the identity of its data controller.

3. What TeamResearch provides

TeamResearch helps teams organise research projects, methods, tasks, deadlines, writing and submissions. It is a coordination tool, not an institutional archive, participant database or substitute for research ethics approval, research supervision or professional advice.

You remain responsible for research decisions, accuracy, ethics approvals and institutional requirements. Check deadlines and progress information independently. Reminders and notifications should not be your sole means of meeting funding, submission or other obligations.

4. Accounts and security

Provide accurate account information and keep it current. Keep credentials confidential, use your own account and give collaborators access through the service’s collaboration features. Tell us promptly about suspected unauthorised access. You are responsible for your own use and for reasonable steps to protect your account; you are not automatically responsible for activity caused by our failure to meet our obligations.

Authentication is provided through Clerk. Optional external sign-in services may have their own terms. Using an institutional email address does not prove institutional approval.

5. Your content and confidentiality

You or the relevant rights holder retain ownership of your project information, writing, notes and other content. You give us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, copy, process, transmit and display it only as necessary to provide and secure the service, comply with law and carry out your instructions. This licence continues only as needed during the deletion and retention periods described in the Privacy Policy.

We do not sell your content, use it for advertising or use it to train machine-learning models. We will treat non-public project content, including unpublished research and manuscripts, as confidential. Access and disclosure are limited to authorised collaborators, personnel and service providers who need it to deliver or secure the service, or disclosures required by law. Personnel with access must be bound by appropriate confidentiality duties. Where legally permitted, we will notify you about compulsory disclosure of your confidential content.

You must have the permissions needed to store and share content. Do not infringe copyright, confidentiality, privacy or other rights. Your right to use TeamResearch does not override your institution’s policies, funder requirements or research ethics conditions.

6. Permitted research information

Do not store identifiable research-participant records, participant contact lists, consent forms, health records, special-category personal data or criminal-offence data in TeamResearch. This includes coded or pseudonymised participant-level records if re-identification remains possible, and identifying information embedded in notes, writing, filenames or URLs.

Use non-identifying project descriptions and aggregate progress. Keep participant records in institution-approved systems. Links to such systems must not reveal participant identities, credentials or publicly accessible participant datasets. Ordinary professional information about researchers and collaborators is permitted where you have authority to use it.

If prohibited information is uploaded, notify us promptly. We may restrict access or remove it proportionately while helping the responsible controller address the issue. This restriction does not remove our duties for any personal data we actually process.

7. Acceptable use

Do not use TeamResearch unlawfully, upload malware, harass others, send spam, circumvent permissions, access other users’ information without authority, or deliberately disrupt the service. Do not test security without written authorisation or use automation that unreasonably burdens the service. Do not resell access or copy or reverse-engineer protected parts of the service except where applicable law permits this despite a contractual restriction.

Report suspected vulnerabilities privately to privacy@teamresearch.app and avoid accessing or disclosing other users’ information.

8. Collaboration and external resources

Project owners manage project access within the app. Depending on permissions, collaborators may view or edit shared information. Owners can remove access or delete projects. Invite only intended recipients and check that their access is appropriate.

Deleting an owner’s account deletes all projects that account owns, including collaborators’ access to those projects. Keep authorised copies of important information outside TeamResearch before taking that step.

You may add links in writing sections to manuscript sections hosted in external services. You must restrict access to named authorised people or an appropriately restricted institutional group. Do not use public or “anyone with the link” sharing for these documents. You are responsible for checking access permissions when adding links and when team membership changes. Adding a link to TeamResearch does not change the external document’s permissions. Removing someone from a TeamResearch project does not revoke their external access.

Private calendar-feed links can expose information to anyone who has them. External document and calendar services apply their own terms and permissions. Calendar applications may retain information already downloaded. We remain responsible for TeamResearch’s own access controls and our obligations when using infrastructure providers; their involvement does not create a blanket exclusion of our liability.

9. Free service and future paid plans

The current service is free and billing is not enabled. Registering, joining a waitlist or expressing interest in a plan creates no payment obligation or automatic subscription.

We may introduce optional paid plans later. Before you purchase, we will provide applicable prices, taxes, billing periods, renewal and cancellation arrangements, refund information and any statutory cancellation information. Payment requires a separate affirmative purchase. These Terms do not waive future consumer cancellation rights.

We may reasonably change free-plan features or limits as the service develops. We will give reasonable advance notice of a material reduction and an opportunity to retrieve content where practicable. We will not impose retrospective charges.

10. Availability and keeping copies

We will provide the service with reasonable care and skill. We do not promise uninterrupted availability, error-free operation or a particular publication or research outcome. Maintenance, faults and external incidents can affect access; we will take reasonable steps to address problems within our control.

There is no contractual uptime guarantee or individual-project recovery service. Maintain copies of important research and manuscripts in authorised systems. Provider recovery history is short and does not replace your institution’s record-keeping arrangements. These responsibilities do not reduce our own duties to protect information or remedy failures for which we are legally responsible.

11. Archiving and deleting projects

Archiving is reversible and does not itself permanently delete a project. After archiving, its owner may choose:

• Delete now: permanently removes the project and its contents from the active application database.
• Delete in 30 days: immediately hides the project, followed by permanent removal in the next daily deletion process after the 30-day grace period expires. Contact privacy@teamresearch.app during that period to request recovery.

After permanent deletion, there is no promised recovery path. Related notification-trigger records are removed by the updated deletion process. Separate provider backup and log schedules are described in the Privacy Policy.

12. Account closure and termination

You may stop using the service at any time and delete your account through account security settings. You can also contact us for assistance. We do not currently close accounts or delete projects automatically because of inactivity.

Clerk immediately deletes its live user record and ends active sessions. On receipt of the account-deletion event, our application automatically removes your account record, associated settings and every project you own, with no 30-day grace period. Your projects are also removed for collaborators. Copy information you are authorised to retain before deleting the account; we cannot promise an export after deletion.

Projects owned by others remain. Membership records linked to your application user account are deleted, your access is removed and assigned tasks become unassigned. Unlinked invitations, including invitations to another email address, may remain, as may contributions and identifying references within shared content. Account deletion does not anonymise all shared content. Requests concerning remaining personal information are handled under applicable rights and the responsible controller’s lawful instructions.

We may restrict or end access for a material breach, a serious security risk or a legal requirement. We will act proportionately and, where lawful and practicable, explain the reason and provide an opportunity to remedy a breach. Immediate action may be necessary to protect people, data or the service. You may contact us to challenge a suspension.

If we discontinue the service, we will give reasonable notice and a practical opportunity to retrieve available content where lawful and feasible. Where we process personal data for a customer, the deletion or return obligations in the schedule apply. Closing access does not authorise indefinite retention.

13. Service intellectual property

Rights in the service software, design and branding remain with their respective owners or licensors. You receive a limited, non-exclusive right to access and use the service under these Terms. This does not transfer ownership of the software or branding. Rights to your research and content are covered by section 5.

14. Responsibility and liability

We are responsible for losses caused by our breach of these Terms or failure to use reasonable care and skill where applicable law makes us responsible. Your remedies depend on the applicable law and circumstances.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, death or personal injury caused by negligence, or any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited. Nothing removes mandatory consumer rights or an individual’s statutory data-protection rights.

These Terms do not set a monetary cap on liability or impose a general indemnity on users. We do not guarantee research, funding or publication outcomes, but that does not excuse losses for which we are legally responsible.

15. Disputes and applicable law

Please contact privacy@teamresearch.app if you have a complaint so we can try to resolve it. This does not prevent you from contacting a regulator or bringing proceedings.

Applicable law and the courts with jurisdiction are determined by the relevant legal rules. These Terms do not impose an exclusive forum or remove mandatory protections that apply in your country. Any future change connected with company formation will be explained before it takes effect and will not retrospectively change accrued rights.

16. Changes and general provisions

We may update these Terms to reflect service changes, legal requirements or security needs. For material changes, we will provide reasonable advance notice, explain the changes and seek renewed acceptance where appropriate or legally required. Urgent legal or security changes may require shorter notice. If you do not accept a change, you may stop using the service and retrieve available content before closing your account.

The Terms and applicable data-processing schedule form our agreement about the service, subject to any separately agreed written terms. The Privacy Policy explains data handling and is not a consent waiver. If a provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue to the extent permitted by law. Delay in enforcing a right does not waive it.

We will notify you of a proposed transfer of this agreement to a company or successor and obtain consent where required. A transfer must not reduce your existing protections or override data-protection requirements.

Schedule: Customer data-processing terms

A. Scope, roles and instructions

This schedule applies whenever we process personal data in customer project content on the customer’s behalf under applicable data-protection law, including UK or EU GDPR where applicable. It forms part of the agreement and takes priority for that processing. The customer is the controller, or an authorised processor acting for its controller; TeamResearch is the processor or subprocessor accordingly. Our separate controller activities are described in the Privacy Policy.

Subject matter and purpose: providing research project organisation and collaboration. Duration: the service relationship and the limited deletion, return and backup periods needed to close it. Operations: collection, recording, organisation, storage, retrieval, display, transmission to authorised recipients, amendment and deletion.

Data subjects: researchers, project members, invitees and professional contacts referred to lawfully in project administration. Data types: names, professional contact details, roles, assignments, contribution records and personal information within permitted project metadata and communications. Participant-level records, special-category data and criminal-offence data are prohibited by section 6.

We process only on documented instructions, including these Terms, the customer’s authorised use of service controls and subsequent lawful written instructions. This applies to international transfers. If legally required to process otherwise, we will notify the customer before doing so unless prohibited by law. We will immediately inform the customer if we consider an instruction infringes applicable data-protection law.

The customer determines lawful purposes and bases, supplies required notices, controls authorised users and gives instructions consistent with the service and applicable law. An individual must have authority to give instructions for the relevant institution or controller.

B. Confidentiality and security

We will ensure that authorised personnel are subject to confidentiality obligations. We will implement technical and organisational measures appropriate to risk, taking account of the nature of the information and processing. These must cover access control, secure transmission and storage where appropriate, resilience, restoration following incidents, and regular assessment of effectiveness.

The application uses Clerk authentication, server-side membership and role checks, signature verification for Clerk webhook messages, and randomly generated calendar-feed tokens that users can replace. Project-deletion controls require ownership and prior archiving. A scheduled job is configured to purge projects after the 30-day grace period; account deletion is triggered by Clerk’s signed user-deletion event.

C. Subprocessors

The customer gives general authorisation to use Clerk for authentication, Vercel for hosting, Neon for database services and Resend for email, to the extent they process customer personal data on our behalf. Their relevant entities, processing locations and onward-processing arrangements must be identified in the completed provider register referenced by the Privacy Policy.

We will give prior notice of an intended addition or replacement of a subprocessor and an opportunity to object on reasonable data-protection grounds before the change. We will work to resolve an objection. If no reasonable solution is available, the customer may end affected processing and request return or deletion before the new subprocessor is used for its data.

We will impose data-protection obligations equivalent to those required of us for the relevant processing and remain responsible to the customer for our subprocessors’ performance of those obligations.

D. International transfers

We will not make a restricted transfer without the customer’s documented instructions and a valid mechanism required by applicable law. The operator’s access from Thailand and the providers’ international processing must be covered where relevant. This schedule does not itself constitute the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, UK International Data Transfer Agreement or UK Addendum; any required instrument must be completed separately before the relevant transfer.

E. Assistance and incidents

Taking account of the processing and information available, we will assist the customer with individual-rights requests, security obligations, breach assessments and notifications, data-protection impact assessments and prior consultation with regulators where required.

We will notify the customer without undue delay after becoming aware of a personal data breach affecting customer data. We will provide available information about its nature, affected information and people, likely consequences, contact point and measures taken, with further information as it becomes available. We will not wait for a complete investigation before giving an initial notification.

We will refer requests concerning customer-controlled data to the customer and will not respond on its behalf except on instructions or as legally required.

F. Information and audits

We will provide information necessary to demonstrate compliance with this schedule and applicable processor obligations, and allow and contribute to audits and inspections by the customer or its appointed independent auditor. Reasonable confidentiality, security and scheduling arrangements may protect other customers’ information but must not prevent an effective audit or regulatory access.

G. Return and deletion

At the end of processing, the customer may choose return or deletion of customer personal data. Request return before using an irreversible project or account-deletion control, so we can arrange a usable electronic copy. Using such a control is an instruction to delete the affected data.

We will delete remaining copies unless applicable law requires retention. Residual backup copies follow the disclosed rotation schedules and remain protected and unavailable for ordinary use. If a backup is restored for disaster recovery, we will reapply relevant deletions before returning restored data to ordinary use. We will provide confirmation of deletion on request, distinguishing any remaining lawfully retained records or backup rotation.

Account deletion by a collaborator does not instruct deletion of projects controlled by another customer. Those projects remain subject to their controller’s instructions and applicable individual rights.

Questions? privacy@teamresearch.app