Terms & Conditions

Last updated: 1 January 2026

1.About these terms

These Terms & Conditions ("Terms") govern the provision of services by Cohira Clinical Research ("Cohira", "we", "us"), a business registered in [the United Arab Emirates] under [legal entity name / commercial licence number], to you, the client ("you", "the Client"). By accepting a quotation, paying a deposit, or instructing us to begin work, you agree to these Terms together with the written proposal for your project. Where a signed proposal or statement of work conflicts with these Terms, the signed proposal prevails for that engagement.

2.Definitions

• Services, the research, statistical, writing, publishing, regulatory, or training services described in the proposal.
• Deliverables, the documents, analyses, datasets, code, or other outputs we produce for you.
• Proposal, the written scope, deliverables, timeline, and fees we issue and you accept.
• Milestone, an agreed point of delivery against which part of the fee becomes payable.

3.Services & scope

We provide the Services described in your Proposal, exercising reasonable skill, care, and prevailing professional standards. The Proposal defines the exact scope. Work outside that scope, including additional analyses, extra revision rounds, new outcomes, or a change of target journal, is treated as a variation and may be subject to additional fees agreed in writing before it is carried out.

4.Quotations & fees

Fees are quoted and payable in US dollars (USD). Published prices apply to work of standard scope; complex, large-scale, or urgent work is quoted individually. A quotation is valid for [30] days unless stated otherwise. Prices exclude any bank transfer charges, currency-conversion costs, journal article-processing charges (APCs), database-access fees, or taxes, which are your responsibility unless the Proposal states otherwise.

5.Payment terms

• A non-refundable deposit of 30 to 50% of the fee is payable before work begins; we reserve your slot and start work once it is received.
• The remaining balance is invoiced at the milestones set out in the Proposal, as the corresponding work is delivered.
• Invoices are payable within [7] days of issue.
• We may pause work on overdue accounts. Late payments may incur interest at [1.5%] per month on the outstanding amount.
• Final Deliverables and their underlying files are released on receipt of full and cleared payment.

6.Refunds & cancellation

Because our work is bespoke and time-based, the deposit and any completed milestones are non-refundable. If you cancel an engagement in progress, you remain liable for all work performed and committed up to the cancellation date, and we will hand over the work completed to that point. We may cancel an engagement for non-payment, breach of these Terms, or if continuing would require us to act contrary to research-integrity or ethical standards (see clause 7).

7.Authorship & research integrity

Our work is bound by international research-integrity standards. In particular:

• Authorship is determined solely by the ICMJE criteria. We are credited only where our contribution genuinely meets those criteria, and otherwise named in the acknowledgements where appropriate.
• We do not sell, gift, or trade authorship, and we do not ghostwrite papers for an author who has not contributed.
• You are the substantive author of your work and are responsible for understanding, approving, and being able to defend it.
• We will not fabricate, falsify, or misrepresent data, methods, or results, and we will disclose limitations honestly.
• We may decline or stop work that would breach these principles, publication ethics, or the policies of a target journal.

8.Your responsibilities

You warrant that:

• any data you provide is accurate, lawfully obtained, and that you are entitled to share it with us;
• the necessary ethics / IRB approvals and participant consents are, or will be, in place for the research;
• personal or patient data is anonymised or pseudonymised before it is shared with us, unless we have agreed a specific lawful basis and safeguards in writing;
• you will review Deliverables, respond to queries, and provide approvals within reasonable timeframes; and
• you are responsible for the final decision to submit, publish, or act on any Deliverable.

9.No guarantee of outcomes

Except where you have purchased the optional Acceptance Guarantee under section 10.2, we do not and cannot guarantee that a manuscript will be accepted, that a study will reach a particular journal, or any specific result, citation, grade, or grant outcome. Editorial and peer-review decisions are made by third parties outside our control. We commit to rigorous, honest, defensible work and to positioning it for the best realistic outcome, not to a guaranteed result. The Acceptance Guarantee is a commitment to continue working and a defined refund if acceptance is not reached; it is not a promise of any particular journal or timeline, and it never involves conduct contrary to section 7.

10.Revisions, acceptance & the Acceptance Guarantee

10.1 Revisions and acceptance of deliverables

Each Proposal states the number of revision rounds included. Reasonable revisions within the agreed scope are included; further rounds, or revisions arising from new data or a changed brief, are charged as a variation. Deliverables are deemed accepted if you raise no written concerns within [7] days of delivery, or on first use, submission, or publication.

10.2 Acceptance Guarantee (optional add-on to From Idea to Publication Support packages)

On From Idea to Publication Support packages you may purchase an Acceptance Guarantee for an additional fee stated in the quotation, payable [together with the deposit]. The Guarantee applies only where we confirm in writing, after our feasibility assessment, that the study is guarantee-eligible, and only under a separately signed Acceptance Guarantee Agreement that records the journal shortlist, the guarantee period, and the refund terms.

Under the Guarantee we will continue to revise, respond to reviewers, and resubmit the manuscript, at no further charge and without a cap on revision rounds, to journals on the agreed shortlist (Web of Science-indexed journals of the agreed tier) until the manuscript receives an acceptance decision. If no acceptance decision is obtained within [12] months of the first submission, we will refund [the Acceptance Guarantee premium] [or: [ ]% of the total fee paid] within [30] days.

The Guarantee is conditional on: (a) your timely cooperation, including responding to drafts and reviewer requests within [10] days and approving submission to each shortlisted journal in turn; (b) the data, ethics approvals, and authorship information you supply being accurate, complete, and unchanged; (c) the manuscript not being withdrawn, materially altered, or submitted elsewhere by you without our written agreement; and (d) payment of the package fee and premium when due. Journal fees (APCs) remain payable by you. The Guarantee does not promise a specific journal, impact factor, quartile, or timeline, and nothing in it overrides section 7 (Authorship & research integrity).

11.Confidentiality

Each party will keep the other's confidential information private and use it only for the engagement. We will not disclose your unpublished data, research questions, or documents to third parties except as needed to deliver the Services or as required by law. We are happy to sign a separate non-disclosure agreement on request. This clause survives the end of the engagement.

12.Intellectual property

On receipt of full payment, the intellectual property in the Deliverables produced specifically for you transfers to you, and you may use, submit, and publish them as your own work, subject to the authorship principles in clause 7. We retain ownership of our pre-existing materials, methods, templates, code libraries, and general know-how, and may reuse the skills and experience gained. We may describe the engagement at a high level for our portfolio only with your consent or once the work is publicly published.

13.Data protection

We handle personal data in line with our Privacy Policy and applicable data-protection law. You are responsible for ensuring you have a lawful basis to share any personal or patient data with us, and for anonymising it where required. Where we process personal data on your behalf, the parties will agree appropriate data-processing terms.

14.Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded. Subject to that, our total liability arising out of or in connection with an engagement is limited to the total fees paid by you for that engagement. We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of opportunity, reputational harm, or for editorial, peer-review, regulatory, or examination decisions made by third parties. You are responsible for verifying Deliverables before relying on, submitting, or publishing them.

15.Term & termination

These Terms apply from the start of an engagement until the Services are complete. Either party may terminate for material breach that is not remedied within [14] days of written notice, or immediately where required for legal or research-integrity reasons. On termination, you pay for all work performed to date; clauses on confidentiality, IP, integrity, and liability survive.

16.Force majeure

Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including illness, loss of database or platform access, infrastructure failure, or acts of government. Affected timelines are extended accordingly.

17.General

We act as an independent contractor; nothing here creates a partnership, employment, or agency relationship. You may not assign an engagement without our consent. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. We may update these Terms from time to time; the version in force when you accept a Proposal governs that engagement.

18.Governing law & dispute resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of [the United Arab Emirates / the applicable Emirate or free zone]. The parties will first attempt to resolve any dispute amicably; failing that, the dispute is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of [Dubai, UAE] or to arbitration under [DIAC] rules, as the parties agree.

Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email info@cohira.org or reach us via the contact page.