Terms of service

Last updated: 18 July 2026

1. Agreement

These terms are a binding agreement between you and [[Authiq Research Agency — full registered name]] (“Authiq”, “we”, “us”). By creating an account or using our services you accept them. If you do not accept them, please do not use Authiq.

Our privacy policy forms part of these terms.

2. Who we are

[[Authiq Research Agency — full registered name]], [[registration number and country of registration]], of [[registered postal address]]. Contact: doctor@authiq.info.

3. What we provide

Authiq is a research mentoring and publication support agency. We:

• Review your research request and decide whether we can genuinely help;
• Match you with a research specialist with relevant expertise;
• Mediate the working relationship between you and that specialist;
• Provide guidance on methodology, analysis, positioning and manuscript quality;
• Review the quality of work before it reaches you;
• Support journal selection, submission preparation and revisions.

We are an intermediary. Research specialists are independent contractors, not our employees, and are not your agents or employees either.

4. Authorship — the core term

You agree that:

• You will write your own manuscript. Your mentor provides guidance, questions, review, teaching and methodological support. They do not author your paper.
• The intellectual contribution is yours. You are responsible for the content, the claims, the data and the conclusions.
• You will approve anything submitted in your name. Our system will not permit a manuscript to be recorded as submitted to a journal until you have personally approved it. You must not ask us to bypass this, and we could not if we wanted to.
• You will not represent our mentor's guidance as your unaided work where you are required to declare assistance — for example in assessed academic work.
• You are responsible for disclosure. Where your institution, funder or journal requires you to disclose editorial or methodological assistance, doing so is your responsibility.

If we conclude that you are seeking ghost authorship rather than mentoring, we will end the engagement. Depending on when we discover it, fees may not be refundable.

5. No guarantee of publication

We cannot and do not guarantee that your work will be accepted by any journal. Acceptance depends on your research and on independent peer reviewers over whom we have no influence and want none.

We have no arrangements with any journal, editor or reviewer. We will not attempt to influence a review process. Any timeline we give is an estimate, not a commitment on behalf of a journal.

6. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 and legally able to enter a contract. You must use Authiq in compliance with the rules of your institution, funder and any journal you submit to.

7. Your account

• Give accurate information and keep it current.
• Keep your password confidential. You are responsible for activity under your account.
• Tell us promptly if you suspect unauthorised access.
• One account per person. Do not share your login.
• Research specialist accounts require our approval. Applying does not create an account: you cannot sign in unless and until we approve your application, and we may decline it at our discretion. Do not misrepresent your qualifications, expertise or publication record when applying.

8. Your obligations

• Your data must be real. Lawfully obtained, ethically collected, and accurately reported.
• Ethics approval must be in place where your research requires it.
• Your work must be original. You must have the right to share anything you upload.
• Disclose AI use in line with your journal's and institution's policy.
• Respond in reasonable time. Mentoring depends on you; long silences may end an engagement.
• Do not attempt to identify or contact your mentor directly. See section 10.

9. What you may not use Authiq for

You may not use Authiq to:

• Obtain a manuscript written by someone else for you to publish as your own;
• Buy, sell or arrange authorship or co-authorship;
• Fabricate or falsify data, results or citations;
• Plagiarise, or submit work you do not have the right to submit;
• Complete assessed coursework, theses or dissertations that must be your own unaided work;
• Circumvent our mediation, or solicit a mentor to work outside Authiq;
• Break the law, infringe someone's rights, or attempt to breach our security;
• Upload malware, or attempt to access data belonging to another user.

We may suspend or terminate immediately, without refund, for any of the above.

10. Mediated communication

All communication runs through Authiq. Client and specialist identities are deliberately separated. You agree not to attempt to discover your counterpart's identity or contact details, and not to solicit or accept work outside the platform with a counterpart introduced through it.

This protects everyone: it keeps quality review meaningful, prevents private pressure, and protects both parties' privacy. Deliberate circumvention is a material breach.

11. Terms for research specialists

If you hold a specialist account, you additionally agree that:

• You will mentor, not ghostwrite. You will not author a manuscript for a client to publish under their own name.
• You will not fabricate data or results, or plagiarise.
• You will only propose for work where you have genuine expertise.
• You will treat everything you see as confidential and unpublished, and will not retain, reuse or disclose it.
• You will not attempt to identify or contact clients directly, nor solicit work outside Authiq.
• You are an independent contractor, responsible for your own taxes.
• Your accepted proposal sets your fee and timeline. Payment follows completed, reviewed milestones.

12. Fees and payment

• Fees are agreed in writing before work begins. There are no hidden charges.
• Payment is arranged outside the platform, by the method we agree. The portal records payments; it does not process them.
• Fees are for professional time and expertise. They are not contingent on publication, and are not a purchase of a publication outcome.
• Refunds: if we have not started, we will refund you. If work is under way, we will discuss a fair outcome in good faith. We do not refund because a journal rejected your paper — that risk is inherent to research.
• We may pause work on overdue accounts.

13. Intellectual property

13.1 Your work

You own your research. Your data, ideas, drafts and manuscript remain entirely yours. We claim no rights over them. We will not publish, reuse or disclose your work, and we will not use it to train machine-learning models.

You grant us only the limited licence needed to deliver the service — to store your work, and to show it to the administrators and mentor working on your project.

13.2 Our materials

The Authiq platform, our name and branding, and our templates and methods remain ours.

13.3 Guidance we give you

Advice, feedback and guidance produced for your project is yours to use in your research.

14. Confidentiality

We treat your unpublished research as confidential, and protect it as described in our privacy policy and on our confidentiality page.

Being straight about the limits: our administrators can see your work, because reviewing it is the service. We may disclose where the law compels us. Once you publish, your authorship is public.

15. Suspension and termination

You may close your account at any time. Fees for work already done remain payable.

We may suspend or terminate if you breach these terms, particularly sections 4, 9 or 10; if payment is seriously overdue; or if we are required to by law. Where the breach concerns research integrity, we may terminate immediately and without refund.

We may also decline or end an engagement if we conclude we cannot help you well. Where we do that and you are not at fault, we will refund work not yet done.

16. Disclaimers

We provide our services with reasonable skill and care. Beyond that, and to the extent the law allows, the service is provided “as is”.

We do not warrant that: your work will be accepted anywhere; a particular mentor will be available; the platform will be uninterrupted or error-free; or that any timeline will be met by a third party such as a journal.

Nothing here excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded — including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.

17. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law:

• We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of opportunity, or reputational loss.
• We are not liable for a journal's decision, a reviewer's opinion, or a delay caused by a third party.
• We are not liable for the consequences of your own breach of these terms — including any institutional finding arising from conduct we told you we would not support.
• Our total liability arising from an engagement is limited to the fees you paid us for that engagement.

18. Changes

We may update these terms. We will change the date above, and for material changes we will tell you directly. Continuing to use Authiq after a change means you accept it. If you do not, you may close your account.

19. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of [[Islamic Republic of Pakistan]], and disputes will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of [[the courts of Lahore, Pakistan]]. If you are a consumer, this does not deprive you of the protection of mandatory laws in your own country.

Before formal proceedings, please contact us — most problems are solved by a conversation.

20. Contact

[[Authiq Research Agency — full registered name]]
[[registered postal address]]
doctor@authiq.info

Read our privacy policy Read our ethics standards