Privacy Policy

How ResearchHub collects, uses, protects, and manages information for public visitors, researchers, partners, and administrators.

Last updated: June 2026

This policy describes the information practices for ResearchHub, the Southern Alberta research and partnership platform. It applies to public pages, researcher profiles, partner request workflows, signed-in dashboards, messaging, alerts, administrator tools, and research-intelligence review processes.

ResearchHub is designed around consent, review, and practical collaboration. Public researcher profiles are intended to share professional information that researchers have validated or approved for publication.

Information We Collect

ResearchHub may collect account, profile, contact, partnership, communication, and operational information needed to run the platform.

  • Account details such as name, email address, role, authentication status, profile links, and workspace permissions.
  • Researcher profile information such as title, affiliation, department, biography, keywords, research areas, public contact preferences, publications, ORCID, Google Scholar URL, and other professional profile links.
  • Partner and community request information such as organization, sector, problem statement, timeline, technology readiness level, contact details, and project notes.
  • Communication records such as invitations, profile-claim outreach, reminders, messages, alerts, email delivery logs, administrative notes, and review decisions.
  • Operational data such as activity logs, source URLs, import records, matching scores, quality flags, duplicate-review signals, and system settings.
  • Technical data such as browser requests, timestamps, session records, security events, and diagnostic information needed to keep the service reliable.

How We Use Information

Information is used to operate ResearchHub, support account access, manage researcher profiles, process partnership requests, coordinate communications, and help administrators review matches and data quality.

  • Create and manage researcher, partner, community, and administrator accounts.
  • Publish and maintain validated public researcher profiles.
  • Generate deterministic and reviewable researcher-to-request matches.
  • Send invitations, password reset messages, claim reminders, alerts, and approved platform communications.
  • Support outreach CRM workflows, source review, duplicate detection, audit logs, and administrator decisions.
  • Improve search, profile quality, accessibility, security, and operational reporting.

Researcher Profiles And Consent

Unclaimed or draft researcher profiles are hidden from public search by default. A researcher or authorized administrator must validate a profile before it is published.

Researchers can request correction, profile updates, visibility changes, or removal from public directory display where applicable.

  • Public profiles may show professional information such as name, role, institution, department, biography, research keywords, selected publications, public profile URLs, and approved contact details.
  • Private account information, internal notes, unverified imported records, and draft profile data are not intended for public directory display.
  • Automated or AI-assisted enrichment outputs should be reviewed by staff before operational use or publication.

Sharing And Disclosure

ResearchHub does not sell personal information. Information may be shared only as needed to operate the platform, support collaboration workflows, meet institutional obligations, or comply with law.

  • Authorized administrators may access records needed for outreach, review, matching, support, reporting, and data-quality work.
  • Institution administrators may receive access scoped to their institution where configured.
  • Researchers, partners, and community users see only information appropriate to their role and workflow.
  • Service providers may process information on behalf of ResearchHub for hosting, email delivery, analytics, security, or system operations.
  • Public pages only display information intended for public release.

Retention, Security, And Access

ResearchHub keeps information only as long as needed for platform operations, auditability, support, legal requirements, institutional reporting, or legitimate collaboration history.

Security controls may include role-based access, password hashing, session controls, admin audit logs, limited file upload rules, database backups, and environment-based configuration.

  • Some records, such as audit logs, email logs, and partnership history, may be retained to preserve operational accountability.
  • Backups may retain records for a limited period before routine expiry.
  • No internet-connected service can guarantee absolute security, but ResearchHub is designed to limit access by role and workflow need.

Your Choices And Contact

Users may request access to their information, corrections, account deactivation, profile visibility changes, or clarification about how information is used.

For privacy questions, profile corrections, or data requests, contact ResearchHub support with your name, organization or institution, account email, and the page or record involved.