Privacy Policy
Last updated: September 2026
1. Overview
ScholarPair helps researchers find collaborators. You describe a project, and we return a ranked, explained shortlist of principal investigators whose work fits. It is free for academic and non-commercial research. This policy explains what we collect and how we use it.
2. Information we collect
- When you sign in with Google: your email address and name, as provided by Google. We never receive or store your Google password.
- Your use-type declaration: whether you identify as academic or commercial, which you tell us at sign-in.
- Your searches: the project descriptions you submit, which we process to produce matches and may retain to improve the service.
- Basic technical data: a signed count of your free guest searches, and standard request information (such as IP address) used for security and abuse prevention.
3. The collaborator database
Researcher profiles in ScholarPair are built from public research data (for example, OpenAlex). We link to public profiles. We do not publish scraped personal email addresses.
4. How we use your information
- To run your search and rank collaborator matches.
- To keep you signed in and apply fair usage limits.
- To operate, secure, and improve the service.
5. Third-party services
- Google Sign-In (OAuth): to authenticate you. We receive your email and name only.
- Google Gemini API: your query text and public profile text are sent to Google's Gemini models to interpret the request and rank matches.
- OpenAlex: the public source for researcher and publication metadata.
- Hosting: the app runs on Render and the database on Neon (PostgreSQL), with encryption in transit.
6. Data security
Sign-in uses Google OAuth, so we store no password. Data is transmitted over TLS. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable measures to protect your information.
7. Your rights
Depending on your location (for example, GDPR or CCPA), you may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data. Email info@scholarpair.online and we will help.
8. Contact
Email: info@scholarpair.online