Contributors retain their rights

Scenius does not claim ownership over contributions to civic research. Contributors retain their intellectual rights. Attribution is preserved within the platform, and any use of a specific contribution beyond Scenius requires explicit agreement with the contributor.

What Scenius does NOT claim ownership of

• Ideas, proposals, or perspectives submitted as contributions.
• Content, examples, evidence, or arguments a contributor authored.
• Downstream outcomes — pilots, policies, products, publications — derived from contributions.

What Scenius does hold

• A copy of the contribution as part of the research record, so it can be referenced, cited, and included in synthesis.
• Attribution metadata (who contributed, when) — visible according to the project’s attribution policy (public, pseudonymous, or anonymous).
• A lineage graph — how contributions relate to each other (supports, refutes, builds on, elaborates) — used for both the network view and finding synthesis.

Published findings and reports

Findings and reports are Scenius artifacts. They are authored by project owners (Scenius researchers or the sponsoring organization’s designated researchers), reviewed and published under Scenius’s process.

Reports may quote or reference contributions to support their claims. When they do, the contribution’s attribution mode (public / pseudonymous / anonymous) applies.

What participation grants

By contributing to a research project on Scenius, you grant Scenius and the project owner:

• A right to display your contribution within the project, subject to the project’s visibility policy.
• A right to include your contribution in synthesis, findings, and reports — with attribution preserved per the project’s attribution mode.
• A right to retain the contribution as part of the research record for audit and traceability.

You do not grant Scenius or the project owner:

• The right to commercialize your specific contribution.
• The right to relicense your contribution to third parties outside the research context it was made in.
• The right to strip attribution.

Sponsors and organizations

Sponsoring organizations receive published findings and reports. They do not receive licenses to individual contributions. A sponsor that wishes to build on a specific contribution beyond what the report covers must contact the contributor directly for an explicit agreement.

Attribution modes

Each project sets one of three attribution modes: public, pseudonymous, or anonymous. See Contribution & Attribution for how each mode works.

Removing your contributions

You can request removal of a contribution. Removal takes effect going forward; contributions already cited in a published finding or report remain in the published artifact (published records are frozen), but no new synthesis will use the removed content and the contribution is marked removed in the source data.