How Partnerships Work
Stage 1, scientific evaluation, Stage 2 where required, scope, agreement, activation, work, review and output pathways are explicit.
PUBLIC GOVERNANCE CENTER
Readable rules. Versioned policies. Scientific accountability.
This center separates organizational acceptance from journal acceptance, funding from authorship, microscopIA delivery from journal timelines, and public Stage-1 forms from restricted project workflows.
Policy version GLOBAL-PARTNERSHIPS-2026.09-v2 · effective 2026-09-20
SUBMISSION FORMS
Start with the right inquiry.
GOVERNANCE AREAS
The controls behind every scientific relationship.
Scientific Governance
Responsibilities, decisions, methods, source authority and project-specific oversight are defined before activation.
Research Integrity
No ghostwriting, guaranteed outcomes, simultaneous journal submissions, purchased authorship or suppression of inconvenient findings.
Authorship and Contributors
Authorship follows qualifying scientific contribution, accountability and final approval. Funding never purchases authorship.
Competing Interests
Employment, consultancy, honoraria, funding, grants, equity, ownership, patents, advisory and relevant relationships are disclosed.
Publication & Open Access
Journal suitability, indexing, authorship, corresponding-author eligibility and a legitimate access route are confirmed before submission.
Regional Access Pricing
Preferential pricing is determined by primary institutional affiliation only and never changes scientific, authorship or editorial standards.
Data Governance and Confidentiality
Source-data owners retain ownership/control unless contractually changed. Public forms never collect patient identifiers or restricted research files.
Funding Independence
Support does not automatically confer authorship, scientific control, suppression rights, ownership of results or control over conclusions.
Intellectual Property
AI, device, software, patentable and commercial innovation requires project-specific background IP, inventorship, ownership, licensing and publication terms.
Re-scoping
Material differences in data, cleaning, objectives, endpoints, workstreams, authors, regulation or prospective collection trigger formal re-scoping.
PROJECT STATE MODEL
No ambiguous status labels.
A publication partnership uses explicit states so each stakeholder can distinguish evaluation, activation, scientific work and independent journal decisions.
- 1Simulation
- 2Submitted
- 3Scientific Evaluation
- 4Accepted by microscopIA
- 5Pending Activation
- 6Activated
- 7Scientific Work
- 8Author Review
- 9Ready for Submission
- 10Journal Review
- 11Revision
- 12Accepted for Publication
- 13Published
PUBLICATION & OPEN ACCESS POLICY
A legitimate corresponding-author route controls access—not payment.
Selected PubMed-indexed journals that are scientifically appropriate for the work
Open access where eligible
microscopIA-funded open access applies only when a qualifying microscopIA author legitimately serves as corresponding author. Funding does not purchase authorship.
Subscription route
When another legitimate corresponding-author arrangement applies, microscopIA ordinarily uses a subscription route where the selected journal offers one.
Fully open-access journals
If a journal is fully open access and the project does not meet the open-access eligibility rule, the team must choose another eligible journal or legitimate arrangement before submission.
Publisher agreements
Publisher arrangements are separate, dated, governed and agreement-specific. Portfolio naming never guarantees that every journal or article is eligible. When an eligible article-processing charge is funded, direct payment to the publisher is preferred. The public planner never adds an imaginary APC.
Never guaranteed: authorship, journal acceptance, publication, indexing, editorial outcome, citation impact, regulatory or policy adoption.
EXTERNAL STANDARDS
Recognized frameworks, stated with their limits.
These references guide relevant controls; they do not imply certification, accreditation, journal endorsement or a substitute for project-specific legal, ethics or institutional review.
Accessibility
WCAG 2.2 Level AA is the active design and testing target, not an unverified conformance certification.
W3C WCAG 2.2 ↗Authorship & contributors
Qualifying authors are expected to satisfy all four ICMJE authorship criteria; other contributions should be acknowledged transparently.
ICMJE authorship guidance ↗Publication ethics
COPE process guidance informs authorship and publication-ethics workflows, subject to the controlling journal and institutional requirements.
COPE authorship discussion document ↗Income classification
World Bank FY2027 is the versioned source for non-regional income tiers. Latin America & Caribbean access is a separate microscopIA policy.
World Bank country and lending groups ↗REGIONAL ACCESS PRICING
A transparent access rule—not a scientific preference.
Permanent regional baseline
Eligibility basis
The primary institutional affiliations of the proposed external authors—not nationality, citizenship, residence, ethnicity or personal identity.
Majority rule
The Colombia baseline applies when strictly more than 50% of the external team has a primary institutional affiliation in Colombia. Otherwise, the Latin America & Caribbean baseline applies when strictly more than 50% of the external team has a primary institutional affiliation in the region. Exactly 50% or no majority requires individual evaluation.
Scientific independence
Regional pricing does not change scientific evaluation, authorship criteria, peer-review independence, journal selection, publication standards or editorial outcomes.
Boundaries
The Americas promotion applies to current project fees for projects approved by October 31, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Colombia time, thanks to Dr. Agamenón Quintero Villarreal. It excludes the United States and Canada, taxes and third-party charges. Other promotional reductions do not combine with it.
TWO SEPARATE CLOCKS
microscopIA’s delivery target is not the journal’s process.
Standard, accelerated and preferential targets are up to 8, 4 and 2 weeks after complete Project Activation for microscopIA’s submission-ready scientific work. Editorial screening, peer review, revision, acceptance, production, indexing and publication remain independently controlled by the journal or publisher and have no promised duration.
ACTIVATION PACKAGE
Work starts only when every applicable requirement is complete.
These records are issued through the active project workflow; they are not public acquisition forms.
Publication Partnership Agreement
Project-specific route after acceptance.
Terms and Conditions
Project-specific route after acceptance.
Confidentiality & Data Governance Agreement
Project-specific route after acceptance.
Authorship & Contribution Declaration
Project-specific route after acceptance.
Competing Interest Declaration
Project-specific route after acceptance.
Ethics / consent / institutional verification
Project-specific route after acceptance.
Complete usable research materials
Project-specific route after acceptance.
Required Activation Payment
Project-specific route after acceptance.
DATABASE READINESS
Raw unstructured exports are not publication-ready databases.
Original research requires organized structure, clear coding, a data dictionary or codebook, defined missing values, variable definitions, reasonable internal consistency, controlled duplication and appropriate de-identification.
RESEARCH ETHICS
Approvals, exemptions, consent and authority must match the project.
At Stage 1, microscopIA asks only whether the required consent or approvals are obtained, not for patient names, signatures or source documents. Actual consent remains under institutional custody; project-specific verification and secure transfer occur only after qualification or activation.
Public-form boundaryNever upload patient data, clinical source material, signed consent, raw datasets or restricted approvals through a public gateway.
EVIDENCE ATTRIBUTION
Exactly three top-level relationships.
microscopIA Governed
microscopIA initiates or conducts the project using its scientific network and retains primary scientific governance.
microscopIA Collaboration
Work is conducted jointly with external investigators, institutions or partners.
Independent Network Record
Work belongs to a network participant but was produced independently, without microscopIA affiliation, governance or substantive participation. It is never counted as microscopIA-produced evidence.
LEGACY COMMERCIAL TRANSITION
Paid membership is discontinued.
Network participation is not the commercial product. No Associate, Senior, monthly or subscription offer is sold, and network status is not required to submit, collaborate or publish.
- Preserved beneficiary
- Previously approved Senior network participants with a documented legacy entitlement
- Duration
- 12 months from the individually recorded eligibility date
- Original scope
- Eligible microscopIA professional fees outside institutional agreements
- Condition
- The original benefit must have been active and documented before commercial membership retirement
- Exclusions
- APCs, Taxes, Travel, Laboratories, Software licences, Third-party costs
- Promotion combination
- Not permitted
The preserved 30% reduction applies for 12 months measured from the individual eligibility date recorded in the controlling terms. No new paid membership or transition entitlement is sold.
WHAT HAPPENS IF?
Governance questions answered directly.
01What is the difference between microscopIA acceptance and journal acceptance?+
microscopIA acceptance approves a project for scope and activation. Journal acceptance is a later, independent editorial decision.
02Does submission create a payment obligation?+
No. Nothing is payable for a Stage-1 submission or simulation. An Activation Payment becomes due only after microscopIA acceptance and under the executed terms.
03Does payment guarantee authorship, open access or publication?+
No. Payment never confers authorship. Open-access eligibility depends on the legitimate corresponding-author arrangement and the selected journal or publisher agreement. No editorial outcome is guaranteed.
04Who controls source data?+
The external institution or investigators retain ownership/control unless a specific contract says otherwise. microscopIA receives only the rights required for the agreed work; unrelated secondary use requires authorization.
05Can support influence conclusions?+
No automatic scientific, statistical or suppression rights arise from support. Commercially sponsored projects may negotiate IP and publication terms while preserving scientific integrity and required disclosures.
06Are tax-deductible donation claims made?+
No. Support, funding, scientific contribution or institutional sponsorship language is used until the receiving entity and jurisdiction have appropriate legal/accounting confirmation.