SAIF Researcher Charter & Research Engagement Framework

1. Purpose and principle

SAIF exists to make credible research more possible: by connecting meaningful questions with researchers, data, compute, engineering support, mentorship, institutions, and pathways to publication and application.

Researchers do not engage with SAIF in order to surrender their ideas. Bringing an idea, question, method, draft, dataset concept, or research interest to SAIF does not by itself transfer ownership or create an assignment of rights.

2. No appropriation by engagement

• An application, conversation, abstract, meeting, review request, or expression of interest does not assign intellectual property to SAIF.
• Background intellectual property remains with the party that brought it unless a later written agreement expressly states otherwise.
• Rights in new project work are determined by the applicable engagement modality and project agreement before substantive work begins.
• SAIF will not impose new ownership or commercialization terms retrospectively after a researcher has already produced the relevant work.

3. Safe first disclosure

Initial researcher intake is intentionally non-confidential. Researchers should describe the field, problem, expected contribution, public background, and support needed without disclosing proprietary methods, patentable details, unpublished source material, credentials, personal data, or other confidential information.

If a promising discussion requires sensitive disclosure, SAIF and the researcher should first put an appropriate confidentiality arrangement in place. A project agreement must then define the terms that apply to the substantive work.

4. Research engagement modalities

• Affiliated Researcher — the researcher brings an existing or independently developed research direction and seeks affiliation, mentorship, infrastructure, community, or other support. The researcher ordinarily retains research ownership, subject to any specific resources or third-party rights involved.
• Collaborative Research — the researcher and SAIF jointly shape or conduct a project. Each party keeps its background IP; ownership and use of new project IP are agreed prospectively according to contribution and project purpose.
• SAIF-Supported Research — SAIF provides funding, compute, data access, engineering support, administration, mentorship, or other material support for an agreed research question. Scholarly authorship follows contribution; project-specific IP and commercialization rights are agreed before work begins.
• Commissioned or Employed Research — SAIF defines and funds work to solve a specified problem. SAIF may require broader ownership or exploitation rights in commissioned foreground IP, but those rights must be stated clearly in advance.
• Industry- or Institution-Sponsored Research — a third party supports a defined project. Sponsor rights may include review, an option or license, or other negotiated rights. Researchers retain appropriate scholarly credit and publication rights subject to the agreed confidentiality and IP review process.

5. Project agreement before substantive work

Every substantive research project should have a written project agreement or project record before confidential disclosure, material resource commitment, or project execution. The document may be short, but it should remove ambiguity.

• research question, scope, expected outputs, and contributors;
• engagement modality;
• background IP and third-party materials;
• ownership or licensing of new project IP;
• data access, confidentiality, privacy, and security obligations;
• funding, compute, engineering, institutional, or other support;
• publication and pre-publication review process;
• authorship, attribution, acknowledgments, and contributor roles;
• commercialization rights or benefit-sharing where relevant;
• timeline, project governance, withdrawal, and completion expectations.

6. Authorship, attribution, and credit

Scholarly authorship follows genuine scholarly contribution, not institutional position, seniority, funding, infrastructure provision, or title alone. SAIF support can and should be acknowledged even when it does not qualify a person for authorship.

Where useful, projects should record contributor roles explicitly, using a recognized contribution taxonomy such as CRediT or an equivalent project record.

7. Publication and research integrity

SAIF supports credible publication and dissemination. Researchers should be able to publish project results unless a project agreement legitimately restricts specific confidential information, third-party material, personal data, security-sensitive content, or protectable IP.

A project may include a defined pre-publication review period to identify confidentiality, compliance, or IP-protection issues. Such review should not become an indefinite right to suppress legitimate scholarly publication.

SAIF may publish clearly labeled research briefs, technical reports, datasets, repositories, or other outputs. Publication by SAIF must not be represented as external peer review unless it actually received that review.

8. Commercialization and benefit-sharing

Research may create commercial or operational value. Where SAIF has ownership, licensing, or commercialization rights in project IP, the applicable project agreement should state how contributors participate in economic benefit, if any, before commercialization occurs.

The appropriate arrangement depends on who brought the background work, who funded the project, who created the new IP, what resources were contributed, and whether the work was independent, collaborative, supported, commissioned, or sponsored.

9. Confidentiality, data, and conflicts

• Researchers must protect confidential and restricted information they legitimately receive through SAIF.
• Research data must be accessed, used, documented, stored, and shared according to applicable law, permissions, project terms, and SAIF policy.
• Researchers must disclose material conflicts of interest that could affect research judgment, publication, procurement, evaluation, or commercialization.
• Confidentiality obligations survive the end of an engagement to the extent stated in the applicable agreement or required by law.

10. Researcher continuity and exit

A researcher may step back from a project subject to agreed notice, handover, confidentiality, data, and IP obligations. Leaving a project does not erase credit already earned for genuine contribution.

SAIF may pause or end a project where quality, ethics, legality, safety, resources, conflicts, misconduct, or institutional feasibility make continuation inappropriate. Existing attribution and agreed rights remain governed by the project record.

11. Relationship to other SAIF policies

This Charter works together with SAIF’s Policies and Code of Conduct and any project-specific written agreement. If a project agreement contains more specific terms for a particular project, those project-specific terms control for that project. No project agreement should silently remove credit already earned or assign pre-existing researcher IP unless that result is explicit and knowingly agreed.

12. Review and amendments

SAIF may update this Charter as its research program matures. The version accepted at intake is recorded. Material changes affecting an active project should not automatically rewrite already agreed project terms; they should be addressed through the project agreement or a mutually accepted amendment.