These Terms apply to all users of the Platform, including readers, registered researchers, authors, reviewers, editors, editorial administrators, organization administrators, institutional representatives, and visitors who access public content.

You agree to these Terms by registering an account, clicking an acceptance control during signup or submission, paying for a subscription or submission fee, or continuing to use the Platform after notice of updated Terms. If you use the Platform on behalf of an organization, you represent that you have authority to bind that organization.

Inquisra may update these Terms to reflect legal requirements, product changes, or governance improvements. Material changes will be communicated through the Platform, email where available, or updated effective dates on this page. Continued use after the effective date of revised Terms constitutes acceptance, except where applicable law requires explicit consent.

You must be at least eighteen (18) years of age, or the age of legal majority in your jurisdiction, to create an account. Where minors participate in research workflows, institutional and guardian responsibilities apply outside the Platform.

You must have legal capacity to enter a binding agreement and must not be barred from using the Platform under applicable law or prior enforcement action by Inquisra.

Institutional and organization accounts must be created by authorized representatives with authority to accept these Terms on behalf of the institution or organization. Organization administrators are responsible for managing member access and ensuring affiliated users comply with applicable policies.

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity under your account. Notify Inquisra promptly if you suspect unauthorized access.

Account and profile information must be accurate, current, and not misleading. Professional identity features — including education, employment, affiliations, publications, and credentials — must reflect good-faith representations of your scholarly record.

Inquisra may offer identity verification, ORCID linking, institutional affiliation confirmation, and reviewer or editor badges. Verification indicates that specified claims have met platform checks; it does not guarantee future conduct or completeness of a profile.

Researchers using Inquisra must conduct themselves ethically and in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, institutional policies, funder requirements, and professional standards in their discipline and jurisdiction.

This includes honest representation of credentials, accurate reporting of affiliations and funding, respectful collaboration, and cooperation with integrity investigations when good-faith concerns arise.

Researchers are responsible for determining whether use of the Platform satisfies employer, institutional, and governmental requirements for publication, data sharing, and professional conduct.

Authors warrant that submitted work is original to the extent claimed, that they hold necessary rights to submit it, and that co-authors have approved submission. Proper attribution of prior work, data, software, and figures is required.

Authors must disclose conflicts of interest, funding, ethics approvals, consent, data availability limitations, and material artificial intelligence assistance in accordance with platform policies and publication type requirements.

Submission does not guarantee publication. Editorial decisions are independent of payment except as expressly described for processing fees that cover workflow services, not acceptance outcomes.

Researchers and authors retain ownership of their intellectual property in manuscripts, data, figures, software, and other scholarly outputs submitted to or published on the Platform, except as they separately assign rights outside Inquisra.

To operate the Platform, you grant Inquisra a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, display, distribute, index, archive, translate format, and promote your submitted and published content solely for Platform purposes — including discovery, preservation, metadata services, and displaying trust and review information.

This license does not transfer ownership. It enables Inquisra to provide publishing infrastructure. You may publish similar work elsewhere subject to your own agreements and any exclusive arrangements you have made outside the Platform. Upon account closure, published records may remain archived for scholarly integrity as described in Article XVII.

Researcher profiles may include biographical information, education, employment, publications, projects, opportunities, identifiers such as ORCID, and other professional metadata you choose to provide.

You control profile visibility settings where the Platform offers them. Public profiles may be indexed by search engines and third-party services. Unlisted or private settings limit but may not eliminate all discovery paths.

Linking ORCID or other identifiers is optional. When linked, information may synchronize according to your settings and applicable APIs.

Reviewers invited through Inquisra must evaluate manuscripts fairly, confidentially, and competently. Unpublished manuscript content may not be shared with unauthorized parties or uploaded to external systems that compromise confidentiality, except as permitted by review model and platform policy.

Reviewers must disclose conflicts of interest and decline or recuse when impartiality is compromised. Review reports must reflect the reviewer's own professional judgment and comply with the Responsible AI Charter where AI tools are used.

Editors assign reviewers, manage conflicts, request revisions, and make decisions according to the Editorial Ethics & Publication Governance Charter. Editorial authority is independent of commercial relationships on the Platform.

Inquisra may offer membership subscriptions for researchers and organizations, editorial processing fees for submissions, and other paid services described on pricing pages. Fees, features, and billing intervals are displayed before purchase.

Payments are processed through Stripe or other designated payment processors. By subscribing or paying a fee, you authorize charges according to the selected plan. Subscription renewals occur automatically until cancelled through account billing controls or the processor portal where available.

Submission fees cover editorial processing, hosting, workflow, and related infrastructure — not guaranteed acceptance. Refunds are generally not provided for completed processing or published workflows except where required by law or expressly stated at purchase. Taxes may apply based on your location and will be collected where required.

Inquisra strives to maintain reliable access but does not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free service. Maintenance, upgrades, security responses, and factors outside Inquisra's control may cause temporary interruptions.

The Platform may change over time. Features may be added, modified, or retired with reasonable notice where practicable. Beta or experimental features may be offered without warranty.

Inquisra implements security measures appropriate to a scholarly publishing platform, including access controls, encryption in transit, and private storage for unpublished submissions. No system is completely secure; users share responsibility for credential protection.

You may not use the Platform for unlawful, fraudulent, abusive, or deceptive purposes. Prohibited conduct includes impersonation; harassment, threats, or hate directed at individuals or groups; spam and unsolicited commercial messaging; distribution of malware or malicious code; operation of paper mills or fabricated publication schemes; fake peer review or reviewer identity fraud; manipulated or fraudulent research; and copyright or trademark infringement.

You may not attempt to gain unauthorized access to accounts, data, or systems; scrape or harvest data in violation of these Terms or robots controls; circumvent billing or access restrictions; or use the Platform to launder misconduct across identities or organizations.

Inquisra may investigate violations and cooperate with institutions, funders, and law enforcement where appropriate and lawful.

Users must not engage in fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, undisclosed image manipulation, citation manipulation, duplicate publication, authorship fraud, undisclosed conflicts, or deceptive artificial intelligence use as described in platform governance documents.

Integrity violations may result in rejection, withdrawal, correction, retraction, loss of verification badges, temporary restrictions, suspension, or permanent account termination. Serious cases may be referred to employers, institutions, funders, or authorities.

Research integrity standards apply equally to preprints, organizational reports, datasets, and peer-reviewed publication types. Review labels describe scrutiny applied; they do not eliminate author responsibility for accuracy.

Inquisra's collection, use, and sharing of personal data are described in the Privacy Policy, incorporated by reference into these Terms. Authentication, billing, analytics, and infrastructure providers process data according to their terms and Inquisra's configurations.

Profile visibility, submission confidentiality, and publication exposure are governed by workflow state and your settings. Unpublished manuscripts and private account data are not made public except as required for editorial workflow participants or by law.

You may request access, correction, export, or deletion of certain data subject to scholarly integrity, billing, audit, and legal retention requirements described in the Privacy Policy.

Inquisra may issue warnings, impose temporary feature restrictions, suspend accounts, remove non-public content, or decline publication when users violate these Terms, governance charters, or applicable law.

Moderation actions aim to be proportionate. Serious or repeated violations warrant stronger sanctions. Public publications may be corrected or retracted rather than silently deleted when integrity is implicated.

Users will generally receive notice of account sanctions except where immediate action is necessary to prevent harm, preserve evidence, or comply with legal obligations.

Users may appeal certain account sanctions, disclosure findings, and administrative actions through support or designated editorial channels. Appeals must include specific grounds, supporting documentation, and requested remedy.

Publication decisions — including rejection and requests for revision — are editorial judgments. Appeals of editorial decisions are limited to alleged procedural error, undisclosed conflicts, or policy misapplication, not disagreement with scientific opinion.

Inquisra will acknowledge appeals within reasonable timeframes and assign review to personnel not directly involved in the original decision where feasible.

These Terms operate together with Inquisra governance documents. The Researcher Bill of Rights defines researcher protections. The Editorial Ethics & Publication Governance Charter governs editorial independence, peer review, corrections, and enforcement. The Responsible AI in Research & Scientific Publishing Charter governs AI disclosure and prohibited uses. The Conflict of Interest & Disclosure Charter governs transparency of financial and professional relationships.

Research integrity expectations are further described in the Editorial Ethics Charter and publication guidance resources. Where Terms and governance documents differ on scholarly conduct, users must meet the higher standard.

Governance documents may be updated independently with notice. Material conflicts between documents will be resolved in favor of user-protective scholarly standards unless a court or regulator requires otherwise.

You may close your account at any time through account settings or by contacting support. Voluntary closure does not erase published scholarly records that form part of the public scientific record, except where law or retraction policy requires removal.

Inquisra may suspend or terminate accounts for Terms violations, non-payment where applicable, legal requirements, or extended inactivity according to published policies.

Upon termination, access to private dashboards and unpublished drafts may cease. Export tools will be provided where technically feasible subject to billing and integrity holds. Data retention follows the Privacy Policy and legal obligations.

Inquisra may revise these Terms to reflect legal, regulatory, product, or governance changes. Updated Terms will display a new version number and effective date on this page.

Material changes affecting user rights will be communicated through the Platform or email where practicable before the effective date. Prior versions may be available on request or through version history maintained by Inquisra.

If you do not agree to revised Terms, you must stop using the Platform before the effective date.

For general support, billing questions, bug reports, and account assistance, use the Support page at /support or email admin@inquisra.com.

For legal notices regarding these Terms, email legal@inquisra.com with sufficient detail to identify your account and the nature of the inquiry.

For privacy requests and data protection questions, consult the Privacy Policy at /privacy-policy and direct privacy inquiries to privacy@inquisra.com.

For editorial policy questions, integrity reports, and governance matters, refer to the Editorial Ethics & Publication Governance Charter at /ethics-and-review-policy and contact admin@inquisra.com with the subject line Editorial Inquiry.