1. About the MCI Research Expert Network
MCI Research is the medical research platform of MCI Group. It is operated by MedConsult International, a limited liability company registered in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In this Agreement, "MCI Research", "we" and "us" mean MedConsult International acting through MCI Research.
MCI Research is a managed research-delivery platform. We contract with clients who require research support and engage vetted independent researchers to deliver it. You work for MCI Research as a subcontractor. You do not contract directly with the client, and the client does not know your identity during a project.
2. Independent Contractor Status
You are engaged as an independent contractor, not as an employee, agent, or partner of MCI Research. You control how and when you work, use your own tools and equipment, and may work for other organisations. You receive no employee benefits and may not bind MCI Research or the client to any obligation. MCI Research will reassess this classification if the working relationship develops fixed ongoing hours, exclusivity, line management, or employee-style supervision.
3. Quote Requests and Task Cards
MCI Research may send you a quote request with a short brief and the files it has checked. You reply within 24 hours with your fee and the working days you need, or you decline. If the client changes the scope before paying, MCI Research may ask you for a revised quote, which replaces your earlier one. Each task you take on is then defined in a written task card specifying scope, deliverables, deadline, fee, payment terms, and any special requirements. You do not begin work until MCI Research sends you the task card, which it does only after it has received cleared client payment or, for a request billed to an institution by monthly statement, after the client has accepted the quote. You accept the task card in your dashboard within 24 hours. Scope changes, new data requirements, and client-caused delays require a written change order.
A request can include more than one service. The task card lists every service and deliverable you are responsible for. If a request is divided into parts, you receive a task card only for your part. A part that needs the results of an earlier part starts on the start date MCI Research sends you, and your deadline counts from that date.
You may decline any quote request or offered task without penalty. No minimum volume of tasks is required.
4. Compensation and Payment
You quote your compensation for each task. MCI Research may ask several researchers for a quote on the same request and chooses one based on fee, time, and fit. MCI Research presents the agreed total project price to the client. You receive your full accepted quoted compensation. Your quote is binding once MCI Research issues the client quote, unless MCI Research asks you for a revised quote before the client pays.
Except as set out below for institution projects, payment is released within five business days after client acceptance or automatic acceptance, provided cleared funds are received and your tax and identity documentation is complete. MCI Research issues a remittance notice with each payment.
Institution projects: some clients are universities, hospitals and other institutions, and some of them pay MCI Research by monthly statement. In your dashboard, you choose whether you want to receive quote requests for institution projects. You can change your choice at any time; the change does not affect tasks you have already accepted. For an institution project billed by monthly statement, your fee is paid within one month after client acceptance or automatic acceptance, provided your tax and identity documentation is complete. This payment does not depend on when the institution pays MCI Research. Other institution projects are paid within the five business days stated above.
Payment method: Saudi bank transfer for Saudi accounts; approved payment service provider or SWIFT transfer for approved international researchers.
Currency: SAR for researchers who live in Saudi Arabia; USD for researchers who live elsewhere, as MCI Research sets it from your profile. Every amount shows its currency.
Transfer charges: MCI Research pays its outgoing transfer charge; the researcher bears recipient-bank, intermediary-bank, currency-conversion, and return-payment charges unless MCI Research agrees otherwise in writing.
5. Delivery, Revisions, and Cancellation
Your task includes two consolidated revision rounds within the approved scope. Additional revisions are handled as a separate paid change order. Longer projects may be divided into stages, each with its own task card and fee. Your fee is paid for completed work that the client accepts; in a staged project or a request divided into parts, each accepted stage or part is paid separately. If you cannot complete a task, tell MCI Research at once: MCI Research may move the work to another researcher, and no fee is due for unfinished work. If a project is cancelled after work begins, MCI Research pays only for completed stages that the client has accepted.
MCI Research checks every delivery before the client receives it, and a qualified reviewer selected by MCI Research reviews it independently. The reviewer is not told your identity, you are not told the reviewer's, and feedback reaches you through MCI Research.
If MCI Research approves you as a reviewer, you may be asked to review other researchers' deliveries in your field, for the review fee stated in the review request. You recommend approval or changes; MCI Research decides. The confidentiality and data protection terms of this Agreement apply to every review.
6. Confidentiality
You treat the client's project, research question, data, and identity as confidential at all times. You never disclose the client's name, institution, research question, or data to any third party. MCI Research does not tell you the name of the client or of the client's institution. You communicate about a project only through MCI Research's dashboard, never directly with the client. A suspected breach triggers immediate access suspension, evidence preservation, and a remediation plan. MCI Research may withhold unpaid amounts connected to a breach, terminate the task card, and pursue recovery of documented direct losses and legal remedies. Confidentiality obligations survive the end of the engagement indefinitely.
MCI Research keeps a log of access to client files. This log protects both MCI Research and you: it records who accessed what and when, and it is used to investigate any suspected breach.
7. Data Protection
The client owns the raw data they provide. You receive only the minimum access needed to perform the task card. You receive client files and hand in your work only through the MCI Research portal. You return or securely delete all raw data, credentials, copies, and working files on your own devices within thirty days after acceptance, and confirm the deletion to MCI Research when asked. MCI Research keeps the project files in the portal for twelve months after completion.
Client files move only through the MCI Research portal, which uses encrypted connections, role-based access and access logs. You must not use personal email, personal cloud storage, unapproved AI tools, or consumer messaging apps (such as WhatsApp) for client data. Any cross-border transfer must be stated in the task card.
How MCI Research handles your own personal data is explained in the MCI Research Privacy Policy.
8. Intellectual Property
All work product and deliverables you produce under a task card are assigned to MCI Research, which assigns them to the client upon full payment. You retain your pre-existing methods, templates, know-how, and software. Third-party and licensed material remains subject to its own licences. You must create a clean intellectual property chain from yourself to MCI Research and from MCI Research to the client.
9. Authorship, Portfolio Use and Your Anonymous Profile
Authorship is never guaranteed. For publication projects, the task card states the proposed contribution, publication plan, authorship decision-maker, and acknowledgement policy before work begins. If you meet the applicable journal's authorship standard (per ICMJE criteria), you should be listed as an author.
You may use an anonymised description of the type of work and a non-confidential high-level outcome in your CV, portfolio, or LinkedIn profile, only after written approval from MCI Research and the client. You may not name the client, reproduce deliverables, disclose data, or imply endorsement without specific written consent.
MCI Research may describe you anonymously on its website, for example on its expert network page, with information such as your field, specialty, degree, years of experience and publication record. It never shows your name, photo, institution or contact links. You can ask MCI Research to remove your description at any time.
10. Non-Circumvention
For twelve months after the last project with a particular client, you may not knowingly solicit or contract directly with that client for substantially similar work introduced through MCI Research. This clause excludes pre-existing documented relationships, general advertising, and unsolicited inbound work not caused by the introduction. It is a client-introduction and non-solicitation provision, not a blanket non-compete.
11. Tax and Compliance
You are responsible for your own personal or company income tax, social insurance, and registration obligations. MCI Research collects tax-residency and onboarding information and applies any withholding or reporting required by Saudi law. MCI Research does not contractually promise "no withholding."
Depending on your location and status, you must provide evidence of your lawful right to provide services, such as a Saudi freelance work document, commercial registration, or equivalent documentation from your home jurisdiction. MCI Research verifies this evidence before contracting.
MCI Research can contract with and pay researchers only where Saudi law and its banks allow. If MCI Research cannot lawfully engage or pay a researcher in a particular country or through a particular bank or payment provider, it may decline or pause the engagement.
12. Dispute Resolution and Governing Law
Concerns are escalated to MCI Research in good faith within ten business days. If unresolved, the matter proceeds to mediation at the Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration (SCCA). If mediation fails, disputes are resolved by binding arbitration administered by SCCA under its current rules, seated in Riyadh, in Arabic or English as expressly selected. This agreement is governed by the laws of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
13. Entire Agreement
This Agreement, together with each task card you accept, any change order, the MCI Research Privacy Policy, and any documents referenced within them, constitutes the entire agreement between the parties and supersedes any prior discussions or representations.
14. Accepting this Agreement
You accept this Agreement by ticking the acceptance box on the Join Us form, and you confirm it when you first sign in after MCI Research approves your application. When MCI Research publishes a new version, you are asked to accept it at your next sign-in. Each task card you accept confirms this Agreement for that task. MCI Research keeps a record of each acceptance, with the version, date and time.