Terms of Service

Welcome to People of Research, a service operated by People of Research Limited, a company based in the United Kingdom. By joining People of Research, creating an account, paying for membership, joining a trial, or using the service, you agree to these Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy.

Please read these Terms carefully before using the service.

1. Definitions

"People of Research Limited", "we", "us", and "our" mean the company operating People of Research.

"People of Research" means the brand and matching service provided by People of Research Limited.

"Member" means a person who has completed our sign-up process and has an active paid, trial, or free membership.

"Service" means the matching service that connects members with other researchers or research-adjacent professionals in their selected city for the purpose of arranging in-person lunches, coffees, or similar meetups.

"Match" means a group or pair of members introduced by People of Research. We aim to match members in groups of three where possible. If a group of three is not possible, we may match members in pairs.

"Valid Match" means a match where you are introduced to one or more verified members who selected the same city or relevant local match area, and where contact details or introduction details are provided so you can make a reasonable effort to arrange a meetup.

2. Acceptance of Terms

By registering, paying for membership, joining a trial, or using the Service, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agree to these Terms of Service and any policies referenced in them.

If you do not agree to these Terms, you must not use the Service.

3. Membership and Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to join People of Research.

You must provide accurate information when signing up, including your name, email address, match city, and a valid LinkedIn profile, personal website, or other professional profile where requested.

We use this information to help verify that members are real people and broadly relevant to the research community.

We may accept, reject, suspend, or terminate any membership at our discretion, including where information appears inaccurate, misleading, incomplete, or inconsistent.

Membership is personal to you and cannot be transferred to another person.

4. How the Service Works

People of Research is a matching service. We introduce members to other members in their selected city or relevant local match area.

We aim to create match groups of three members. Where this is not possible, we may create a pair. We also aim to introduce members to new people where possible, but this depends on the size, activity, and composition of the member pool in each city.

Once a match has been sent, members are responsible for communicating with one another and arranging the time, date, and location of their meetup.

We do not schedule lunches, book venues, manage diaries, arrange travel, or guarantee that a meetup will happen.

Some members may live outside the city but commute into it, work there, travel there regularly, or have selected that city as their preferred place to meet. Members are responsible for keeping their match city and availability accurate.

5. Member Responsibility

You are expected to make a reasonable effort to engage with your matches. This includes replying to match emails, introducing yourself, suggesting possible dates or locations, and following up where appropriate.

We recommend that members coordinate as a group and use whichever communication channel works best for them, such as email, LinkedIn, or WhatsApp.

We cannot control whether another member replies, follows through, attends, cancels, or behaves in a particular way. Each member is an independent person with their own schedule, priorities, and availability.

6. Support for Unresponsive Matches

If both of your match members are unresponsive, you should contact us at hello@peopleofresearch.com.

Where possible, we may follow up with unresponsive members, encourage them to reply, or attempt to rematch you. Rematching is not guaranteed and depends on timing, available members, and the size of the member pool in your city.

To give us the best chance of helping, you should contact us before the 15th day of the relevant month.

7. Fees, Payments, and Renewals

Membership fees are charged on a recurring basis according to the plan shown at sign-up. The membership fee may vary depending on offer, location, plan, promotion, or legacy pricing.

By joining, you authorise us and our payment provider to charge your selected payment method at the start of each billing period unless you cancel before renewal.

Your membership may renew automatically at the end of each billing period. Renewal terms are shown during sign-up and may also be visible in your member portal or billing area.

If payment fails, your access to the Service may be suspended until payment is completed or a valid payment method is added.

8. Cancellation

You may cancel your membership at any time through the member portal where available, or by contacting us at hello@peopleofresearch.com.

Unless we confirm otherwise, cancellation stops future renewals but does not automatically create a refund for the current billing period.

If you cancel after a renewal payment has already been taken, the cancellation will normally apply to future renewals only, unless you qualify for a refund under these Terms or we agree otherwise.

9. Refund Policy

Refunds are only available where you do not receive any Valid Match within your first 90 days of membership.

Refunds are not available where you receive a Valid Match but do not meet in person, do not engage with your match, do not make reasonable efforts to arrange a meetup, meet only one member instead of a full group, dislike the background or seniority of your matches, or later decide the Service is not what you expected.

Refunds are not available because a member was unaware that People of Research is a matching service and that members are responsible for arranging their own meetup.

No partial or prorated refunds are provided for mid-term cancellations unless we choose to offer one at our discretion or are required to do so by applicable law.

We may issue refunds or close accounts at our discretion where there has been a technical error, a city closure, a failed account creation, or another operational issue.

10. City Availability and Match Preferences

People of Research may add, remove, pause, merge, or close cities at any time based on member numbers, engagement, operational needs, or service quality.

We do not guarantee that any particular city will remain active or that a minimum number of members will be available in any city at any time.

If your city is no longer active, we may offer to move you to another nearby active city, pause your membership, cancel your membership, or issue a refund where appropriate.

We may allow members to share preferences, including interests, role type, seniority, sector, or preferred location. We may consider these preferences where possible, but we do not guarantee custom matching by role, discipline, seniority, employer, industry, or background.

People of Research is intended to encourage open-minded connections across the research community. Members may be matched with researchers or research-adjacent professionals from different disciplines, sectors, or levels of experience.

11. Code of Conduct

Members must act professionally, respectfully, and courteously in all interactions connected to the Service.

Harassment, discrimination, intimidation, abusive language, offensive conduct, repeated non-responsiveness, misuse of member contact details, or sharing another member's private information without consent is not permitted.

If issues arise, members should report them through our feedback form or by contacting hello@peopleofresearch.com.

We may warn, suspend, remove, or permanently ban members who breach these standards. Where membership is terminated for misconduct, no refund will be provided.

12. Safety and In-Person Meetings

Members are responsible for their own safety and judgment when arranging and attending meetups.

We recommend meeting in public places, using your own discretion, and avoiding sharing sensitive personal information unless you are comfortable doing so.

People of Research does not supervise meetups and is not responsible for what happens before, during, or after any in-person or online meeting between members.

13. Intellectual Property and Member Content

All intellectual property rights in People of Research, including the brand, website, content, design, systems, processes, copy, materials, technology, and related assets, belong to People of Research Limited or its licensors.

You may not copy, reproduce, distribute, modify, scrape, reverse engineer, or create derivative works from our content, brand, systems, or technology without our written permission.

By submitting, tagging, sharing, or otherwise providing photos, testimonials, comments, feedback, or other content to People of Research, you grant People of Research Limited a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use, reproduce, edit, crop, adapt, publish, and share that content for marketing, community, editorial, and promotional purposes.

We may make reasonable edits to improve image quality, formatting, brightness, cropping, or presentation, provided the underlying content remains based on the original submitted material.

You confirm that you have the necessary rights and permissions to share any content you provide.

If you provide ideas, suggestions, feedback, feature requests, or recommendations, you agree that we may use them without restriction or compensation to you.

14. Privacy

Our collection and use of personal data is described in our Privacy Policy.

By using the Service, you agree that we may process your personal data as described in the Privacy Policy, including for account management, verification, matching, support, service improvement, and communications.

15. Non-Solicitation and Misuse of the Community

People of Research is designed for genuine professional connection.

During your membership and for one year after it ends, you agree not to use the Service primarily to solicit, recruit, scrape, sell to, spam, or build a competing member database from People of Research members.

This does not prevent ordinary professional networking, collaboration, hiring conversations, or friendships that naturally arise from a match.

16. Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability

The Service is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis.

We do not guarantee that you will receive a match every month, that your match will be in a specific role or seniority level, that members will respond, that a meetup will happen, that the meetup will be useful, or that the Service will meet your expectations.

We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or available in every city.

The Service is not suitable for emergency, urgent, or mission-critical communications.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, People of Research Limited is not responsible for the scheduling, location, attendance, quality, safety, outcome, or consequences of any member meetup. We are not responsible for injuries, losses, damages, disputes, missed opportunities, travel costs, venue costs, or third-party costs connected with using the Service or attending a meetup.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, People of Research Limited will not be liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, punitive, or loss-of-profit damages arising from or related to the Service.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability where it would be unlawful to do so, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, or any rights that cannot be excluded under applicable consumer law.

17. Suspension and Termination

We may suspend or terminate your account if you breach these Terms, provide false or misleading information, misuse the Service, act inappropriately toward other members, fail to pay fees, or create risk for the community or the Company.

We may also close accounts where we stop operating in a city, where there are insufficient members to provide the Service, or where operational issues require closure.

18. Changes to the Service or Terms

We may update the Service, matching process, pricing, cities, membership plans, support process, or these Terms from time to time.

Where changes are material, we will take reasonable steps to notify members by email or through the website.

Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.

19. General Legal Terms

We will not be liable for any delay or failure to perform our obligations where caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including technical failures, payment provider issues, email delivery issues, natural disasters, strikes, civil unrest, public health events, changes in law, or failures of third-party service providers.

You may not assign or transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms without our prior written consent.

We may assign or transfer our rights and obligations under these Terms to another company, purchaser, successor, or affiliate as part of a reorganisation, sale, transfer, or business change.

If we do not enforce a right or provision under these Terms, this does not mean we have waived that right or provision.

If any part of these Terms is found to be invalid, unlawful, or unenforceable, the remaining parts will continue in full force and effect. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any policies referenced in them, form the entire agreement between you and People of Research Limited in relation to the Service.

20. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales.

If a dispute arises, you agree to contact us first so we can try to resolve it informally.

If we cannot resolve the dispute informally, the courts of England and Wales will have jurisdiction, except where applicable consumer law gives you the right to bring proceedings elsewhere.

21. Contact Information

For support or general questions, contact us at hello@peopleofresearch.com.

For company matters, contact People of Research Limited at hello@peopleofresearch.com.

By registering as a member of People of Research, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to these Terms of Service.