1. Purpose
Quplex Ltd supports students in developing academically rigorous, original, and intellectually honest work.
This policy sets out the standards that apply to research projects, academic writing, mathematical investigations, application materials, and other work completed with Quplex support.
Its purpose is to ensure that:
students remain the genuine authors of their work;
mentors provide supervision rather than substitute authorship;
sources, methods, data, and contributions are represented honestly;
research is appropriate to the student’s age, experience, and level;
ethical, legal, safeguarding, and safety requirements are respected; and
work submitted to schools, universities, journals, competitions, or other organisations complies with their rules.
2. Scope
This policy applies to:
students and clients;
Quplex employees, mentors, tutors, consultants, and contractors;
Research Lab projects;
mathematical and interdisciplinary projects;
academic papers and literature reviews;
university application materials;
work prepared for journals, competitions, schools, or universities; and
the use of artificial intelligence and other digital tools in academic work.
3. Core principles
All academic and research work supported by Quplex should be based on:
Honesty
Ideas, results, sources, methods, qualifications, contributions, and limitations must be represented truthfully.
Originality
The student must make the substantive intellectual contribution to work presented as their own.
Rigour
Research questions, methods, analysis, reasoning, and conclusions should be appropriate, coherent, and open to critical review.
Attribution
Sources, quotations, data, software, images, ideas, and external contributions must be acknowledged appropriately.
Transparency
The student should be able to explain how the work was produced, what support was received, and which tools or sources were used.
Responsibility
Students and mentors must consider legal, ethical, safety, safeguarding, privacy, and publication requirements throughout the project.
4. Student authorship
The student must remain the genuine author of any work submitted under their name.
The student is expected to:
understand and be able to explain the research question, methods, argument, and conclusions;
conduct the required reading, analysis, calculations, coding, experimentation, or writing;
keep appropriate notes and records of their work;
distinguish their own ideas from material taken from other sources;
respond personally to mentor and editorial feedback; and
disclose assistance where required by a school, university, journal, competition, or other organisation.
A mentor may provide substantial teaching and feedback, but this does not transfer authorship of the student’s work to Quplex.
5. Permitted support
Quplex mentors may:
help refine a research question;
recommend reading and relevant sources;
teach research methods, mathematics, coding, analysis, or academic writing;
discuss structure, reasoning, and presentation;
identify gaps, errors, unsupported claims, or weaknesses;
provide comments on drafts;
demonstrate techniques using separate examples;
support revision and responses to editorial feedback;
advise on journal selection and submission requirements; and
help the student reflect on the project in applications or interviews.
Mentors should use questions, explanations, examples, and feedback to develop the student’s own understanding and work.
6. Prohibited practices
Quplex does not permit:
ghostwriting or producing work for a student to submit as their own;
purchasing, commissioning, or copying academic work;
plagiarism or inadequate acknowledgment of sources;
fabrication or falsification of data, results, citations, experiments, or evidence;
manipulating analysis to create a predetermined result;
misrepresenting the student’s role, contribution, experience, or qualifications;
submitting substantially the same work to multiple organisations where this is prohibited;
adding an author who did not make an appropriate contribution;
excluding a legitimate contributor contrary to accepted authorship standards;
using confidential, personal, copyrighted, or restricted material without permission;
concealing material assistance from a mentor, third party, software tool, or AI system where disclosure is required; or
submitting work that the student does not understand or cannot explain.
7. Use of artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence tools may only be used where:
the mentor has approved the proposed use;
the relevant school, university, journal, competition, or other recipient permits it;
the student remains responsible for the accuracy and originality of the work; and
the use is disclosed where required.
Permitted uses may include:
brainstorming preliminary ideas;
explaining concepts;
assisting with coding or debugging;
improving grammar or clarity;
organising notes; or
supporting literature searches, subject to independent verification.
Unless expressly approved, AI tools must not be used to:
generate substantive sections of a paper or application for submission as the student’s own work;
fabricate references, quotations, results, or data;
replace the student’s analysis or reasoning;
paraphrase copied material to conceal plagiarism;
generate false experimental or computational outputs; or
process confidential, sensitive, or personal information.
AI-generated information must be checked against reliable sources. AI output must never be treated as a verified academic source in itself.
8. Sources, citations, and copyright
Students must cite sources in an appropriate and consistent format.
Direct quotations must be clearly identified. Paraphrased ideas, data, images, code, and other materials must also be acknowledged where required.
Students and mentors must respect copyright, database rights, software licences, journal rules, and permissions governing third-party material.
9. Data, experiments, and research records
Research data and results must be recorded accurately and retained in a form appropriate to the project.
Students must not:
invent missing data;
remove inconvenient results without academic justification;
alter images or outputs in a misleading manner;
claim that an experiment, survey, interview, or analysis was completed when it was not; or
conceal methodological limitations.
Where relevant, the student should retain:
research notes;
calculations;
code;
source lists;
data files;
draft versions; and
records of significant methodological decisions.
10. Human participants, personal data, and sensitive research
Projects involving human participants, surveys, interviews, identifiable personal data, medical information, vulnerable individuals, or sensitive subjects require particular care.
Such work may only proceed where Quplex is satisfied that the project has an appropriate lawful, ethical, safeguarding, and data-protection basis.
Where formal institutional ethics approval is required, the project must not proceed until approval has been obtained from an appropriate competent institution.
Quplex does not itself grant institutional research ethics approval.
Research involving clinical intervention, diagnosis, hazardous substances, unsafe experimentation, or activities beyond the student’s competence will not be supported without appropriate institutional oversight and safety arrangements.
11. Animals and environmental impact
Quplex does not support research involving harm to animals or activities requiring regulated animal-research approval unless the work is conducted through an appropriately authorised institution.
Students should also consider environmental impact, responsible data collection, and the lawful and ethical use of biological or environmental materials.
12. Publication and journal submission
Quplex may support students with:
identifying an appropriate student journal;
adapting a paper to submission requirements;
preparing submission materials;
responding to editorial feedback; and
revising the work following review.
Submission does not guarantee acceptance. All publication decisions remain with the journal or other independent publication.
Students must comply with the journal’s rules concerning:
authorship;
originality;
previous submission;
conflicts of interest;
AI use;
data availability;
ethical approval; and
disclosure of assistance.
Mentors should only be named as co-authors where their contribution satisfies the relevant journal’s authorship criteria. Otherwise, their support may be acknowledged where appropriate.
13. University applications
Personal statements, essays, short answers, portfolios, and other application materials must reflect the student’s own experiences, thinking, and voice.
Quplex may provide:
questions and structured discussion;
strategic guidance;
feedback on relevance, structure, and clarity;
identification of unsupported or unclear claims; and
proofreading and editorial suggestions.
Quplex will not write an application essay or personal statement for a student or knowingly support false, exaggerated, or misleading claims.
14. Concerns and suspected misconduct
Concerns about academic or research integrity should be reported to:
Dr Evgeny Goncharov
Founder & Academic Lead
evgeny@quplex.co.uk
Quplex may:
pause the relevant work or submission;
review drafts, records, sources, data, and communications;
discuss the concern with the student, mentor, and parent or client where appropriate;
require corrections, additional work, or disclosure;
remove or replace a mentor where necessary;
decline to support submission or publication;
suspend or terminate the programme in serious cases;
notify a journal or other organisation where necessary to correct a material misrepresentation; or
refer safeguarding, legal, or regulatory concerns to an appropriate authority.
Any response will take account of the seriousness of the issue, the student’s age and understanding, whether the conduct was intentional, and whether it can be corrected through education and revision.
15. Raising a concern or complaint
A student, parent, mentor, or other affected person may raise a concern without fear of unfair treatment for doing so in good faith.
Complaints about the application of this policy may be made under the Quplex Complaints Procedure.
16. Training and review
Quplex will communicate this policy to relevant students, parents, mentors, tutors, consultants, and staff.
Mentors involved in research and academic writing should understand the boundaries between legitimate supervision, editing, collaboration, and inappropriate authorship.
Quplex will review this policy periodically and update it to reflect changes in academic practice, publication standards, technology, and applicable law.