Data & Research Ownership

1. Your research remains yours

Contributing to SciTra does not transfer ownership of your data, tasks, trajectories, code, results, or other research materials to SciTra, BenchFlow, or any other project partner.

Contributors retain all right, title, and interest that they hold in the materials they contribute (“Contributor Materials”). Submission to SciTra does not transfer ownership of Contributor Materials or associated intellectual property rights.

For clarity, this statement applies only to rights that the contributor actually holds. Contributor Materials may contain third-party software, model outputs, datasets, licensed content, or other material subject to separate rights or restrictions.

2. Limited use for SciTra research and evaluation

Contributor Materials may be stored, reproduced, processed, analyzed, and used only as reasonably necessary to operate approved SciTra research, scientific-agent evaluation, validation, and supporting infrastructure workflows.

Any permission granted to SciTra for these purposes is non-exclusive and does not transfer ownership of Contributor Materials to SciTra.

Use of third-party infrastructure solely to host, process, or evaluate Contributor Materials on behalf of SciTra does not grant that provider independent rights in the underlying Contributor Materials.

3. Commercial infrastructure partners

Participation by BenchFlow or another commercial infrastructure provider in SciTra does not transfer ownership of Contributor Materials to that provider.

Commercial infrastructure partners do not receive independent rights, through their participation in SciTra, to:

• sell Contributor Materials;
• license Contributor Materials for independent commercial exploitation;
• use non-public Contributor Materials to train commercial products or models;
• incorporate non-public Contributor Materials into independent commercial datasets;
• develop commercial products using Contributor Materials for purposes outside the approved SciTra research and evaluation workflow;
• otherwise independently commercially exploit Contributor Materials.

A commercial infrastructure provider may process Contributor Materials only as necessary to provide approved infrastructure or evaluation services to SciTra, subject to the applicable SciTra permissions and any separately agreed restrictions.

4. No commercial use without explicit prior permission

SciTra will not authorize the sale, commercial licensing, commercial model training, commercial product development, or other independent commercial exploitation of non-public Contributor Materials without the contributor’s explicit prior permission.

Participation in SciTra does not by itself constitute permission for commercial use.

If SciTra or a project partner later wishes to use Contributor Materials for a materially different commercial purpose, additional explicit permission must be obtained from the contributor before that use occurs.

5. No public release without explicit prior permission

Submission to SciTra does not automatically authorize public release or external distribution of non-public Contributor Materials.

Public release of non-public datasets, trajectories, task materials, code, or other Contributor Materials requires the contributor’s explicit prior permission or another applicable release agreement.

SciTra may report aggregate benchmark statistics, evaluation results, and research findings that do not disclose or reproduce non-public Contributor Materials, subject to applicable attribution, authorship, provenance, confidentiality, and collaboration policies.

6. Contributor rights and responsibilities

Contributors should submit only materials that they have the right to provide to SciTra for the intended research and evaluation purposes.

If Contributor Materials contain third-party, confidential, proprietary, personal, export-controlled, licensed, or otherwise restricted material, contributors are responsible for identifying relevant restrictions and ensuring that the intended submission and use are appropriately authorized.

Contributors are encouraged to notify the SciTra team before submission when task-specific restrictions, institutional policies, collaboration agreements, or other constraints may apply.

7. External use by contributors

Nothing in this policy prevents contributors from continuing to use, develop, publish, or otherwise exercise the rights they hold in their own Contributor Materials.

This policy does not claim ownership over research ideas or work independently developed by a contributor before joining SciTra.

Records generated by SciTra infrastructure are treated differently from Contributor Materials. Execution trajectories, evaluation records, benchmark results, and similar records produced by SciTra Runtime or other SciTra evaluation infrastructure may not be distributed, transferred, or published outside SciTra without the SciTra community’s permission.

This restriction applies only to records produced by SciTra infrastructure. It does not restrict the underlying original data, code, tasks, or other Contributor Materials that exist independently of SciTra infrastructure, which remain governed by the other sections of this policy.

Separate SciTra policies concerning provenance, attribution, authorship, confidential collaboration material, and external reuse of work substantially developed within SciTra may still apply.

8. Policy version applicable to a contribution

The version of this policy accepted by the contributor when Contributor Materials are submitted governs SciTra’s use of those materials.

Version 1.0 of this policy applies to Contributor Materials submitted on or after July 1, 2026, including materials submitted before its first publication. It remains current until superseded by a later published version, and is expected to be reviewed on or around October 31, 2026. For the Contributor Materials it governs, this version remains permanently in force; publication of a later version does not change which version governs an existing contribution.

Future changes to this policy will not retroactively reduce the protections applicable to previously submitted materials without the contributor’s explicit consent.

A contributor may voluntarily agree to a later policy version. Silence, continued participation, continued repository access, or publication of a newer policy version will not by itself replace the version previously accepted for an existing contribution.

9. Version history and permanent archive

SciTra will maintain an accessible archive of prior versions of this policy.

Each published policy version will include:

• a unique version identifier;
• an effective date;
• the complete canonical policy text;
• a SHA-256 cryptographic hash of the canonical policy artifact;
• a publication record sufficient to identify the applicable version.

Previously published versions should not be silently overwritten or replaced.

If a correction or amendment materially changes the policy, SciTra will publish a new version and preserve the earlier version in the policy archive.

10. Evidence of policy acceptance

For contributions where explicit policy acceptance is collected, SciTra should retain a record identifying the policy version accepted by the contributor.

The acceptance record should include, where applicable:

• contributor identity or account identifier;
• contributor email address;
• task, submission, or contribution identifier;
• policy name;
• policy version;
• policy SHA-256 hash;
• policy effective date;
• date and time of acceptance;
• date and time of the associated submission.

Acceptance records should be retained together with sufficient submission metadata to establish which policy governed a particular contribution.

11. Evidence retention

SciTra will preserve evidence reasonably sufficient to reconstruct the policy and consent state applicable to a contribution at the time it was submitted.

Evidence may include:

• the canonical policy artifact;
• its SHA-256 hash;
• archived policy versions;
• version-control history and commit identifiers;
• publication timestamps;
• policy release/tag records;
• contributor acceptance records;
• submission metadata;
• relevant repository, form, or workflow records.

The purpose of retaining this evidence is to maintain a verifiable historical record of the policy applicable to submitted Contributor Materials.

12. Cryptographic verification

For each policy version, SciTra will publish the SHA-256 hash of the canonical policy artifact together with the archived policy version.

Anyone may independently compute the SHA-256 hash of the canonical archived artifact and compare it with the published value to verify that the artifact matches the recorded policy version.

The canonical artifact, rather than rendered HTML or other derived formats, is the authoritative object for hash verification.

13. Changes to this policy

A material change to this policy will result in:

• a new policy version;
• a new effective date;
• a new canonical policy artifact;
• a new SHA-256 hash;
• preservation of the prior archived version.

A change that materially reduces protections for Contributor Materials will apply only prospectively unless an affected contributor explicitly agrees to the change.

14. Task-specific restrictions

Contributors may contact the SciTra team before submission to discuss task-specific requirements concerning:

• confidentiality;
• data access;
• publication;
• institutional restrictions;
• collaboration agreements;
• intellectual property;
• public release;
• permitted research use;
• other material-specific limitations.

Where appropriate, additional written restrictions may be recorded for a specific contribution.

15. Questions

Questions about this policy, data use, ownership, commercial use, public release, or contribution-specific restrictions may be directed to the SciTra team through the project’s official contact channel.