Privacy Policy

“Personal information” is information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual.

The types of personal information we collect may include:

Personal and business contact information, such as your name, job title and employer name, email address, social media handles, mailing address, and phone number.

Employment and/or grant applicant information, such as professional credentials, educational and work history, eligibility to work in the United States or other jurisdictions, present and past institutional affiliations, publications, research interests, areas of professional focus or specialization. We may collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, personal information might be contained in an application form, resume, or curriculum vitae, through interviews or other forms of assessment, or background checks.

Account information. We use online services, some of which require users to register for an account. The information in registered accounts is referred to as “Account Information” and may include information such as username, password, media and other content that you include in or through your account.

Financial information. In some circumstances, we may collect payment information from you for the payment of services or reimbursements.

Internet usage information such as details of your visits to our Sites and information collected through cookies and other tracking technologies, including your IP address and domain name, your browser version and operating system, traffic data, and other communication data, and the resources or interactive features that you access on our Sites.

Other personal information you or another person authorized by you submits to us. We ask that you do not provide us with personal information about other individuals unless you are authorized or required to do so by contract or applicable law, or the individual has authorized you to do so and you have provided them with a copy of this Privacy Policy and any applicable supplemental privacy notice.

Location, such as the country, state, or city from where you are accessing our Sites.

We may collect personal information from various sources, including:

From you. We may collect personal information from you when you interact with us in person, by phone, or online through our Sites.

From public or third-party sources. We may collect personal information from public sources including, but not limited to, social media and other websites that enable social sharing. Personal information may also be obtained from government agencies, publicly available or third-party information sources, third-party service providers, or business partners. We may also collect personal information from industry groups and associations or combine personal information we have collected from multiple sources.

Automatically when you engage with us online. We collect your personal information through our Sites and automatically from devices that you use to visit our Sites.

Generally, we use personal information to:

Provide and develop our services. We collect personal information to operate, maintain, administer, and improve our services, programs, events, and other charitable and scientific activities (collectively, “Services”) such as analyzing the effectiveness of the grants and initiatives we have supported. We may also use your personal information to customize your experience with us, such as recognizing you when you visit our Sites, remembering your preferences, or showing you more relevant information.

Communicate with you. We may use your personal information to respond to inquiries from you and to send you administrative communications regarding our Services. We may also send you notices about invitations to participate in surveys about our Services, and other marketing communications you agree to receive from us.

Process transactions. We collect financial information to process your transactions and deliver our Services.

Manage grant-related activities. We may use your personal information to review and respond to grant applications, proposals, and other documents submitted to us.

Manage pre-employment activities. We may use personal information, such as information submitted to us in a job application, to facilitate our recruitment activities and to process employment applications, such as by evaluating a job candidate for an employment activity, and to monitor recruitment statistics. We are headquartered in the United States and our employee and recruitment data is held on our systems in the United States. If an applicant becomes our employee, we will maintain a record relating to that person’s employment (including information collected via the employment application) and may provide additional notices and information about our privacy practices and obligations in connection with employee data.

Comply with law. We use your personal information as we believe necessary or appropriate to comply with any applicable court order, law, regulation and legal processes, including to respond to any government or regulatory requests.

Conduct scientific research, or for statistical purposes, or for purposes of archiving in the public interest. As a foundation focused on the advancement of science, we may use your personal information for a variety of purposes associated with our organizational mission. This includes processing personal information for scientific research or for statistical purposes or for purposes of archiving in the public interest.

Implement compliance, fraud prevention, and security measures. We may use personal information to monitor, detect, and prevent fraud and improper or illegal activity protect us, you, third parties, and the public in general. We may also use your personal information as we believe necessary or appropriate to enforce the terms and conditions that govern our Services.

We may use non-identifiable data (i.e., non-personal, de-identifiable information that cannot be used to identify you) for any lawful business purpose without any obligation or accounting to you.

We will only share or disclose your personal information for the purposes described below:

Within our organization. We may disclose your personal information within our organization, which includes our subsidiaries and affiliates for purposes consistent with this Privacy Policy.

Contractors and service providers. We may employ third-party contractors and service providers to administer and provide our Services on our behalf such as customer support, hosting, email delivery, database management services, and job applicant management systems, as well as external reviewers and advisers who help us process and make determinations regarding grant applications. Our contractors and service providers may use your personal information only as directed by the Simons Foundation and in a manner consistent with this Privacy Policy. Our contractors and service providers are also prohibited from using or disclosing your personal information for any other purpose.

Partners and collaborators. We may share your personal information with other organizations with which we jointly develop and/or promote our Services. For example, some of our Sites use Disqus, a third-party service that enables our visitors to post comments on our website. You may view the Disqus Privacy Policy and control Disqus targeting and personalization.

Disclosures about grant recipients. We publish information about recipients of our research grants, including name, research topic, and amount of funding on our Sites, and may disclose the names of such recipients to third parties.

Professional advisors. We may disclose your personal information to our professional advisors, such as lawyers, bankers, auditors, accountants, and insurers, where necessary in the course of the professional services rendered to us.

Business transfers. In the event we undergo a business transaction, such as a merger, reorganization, acquisition, or transfer of all or a portion of our assets, we may transfer your personal information as part of that transaction. In such a transfer, we will make reasonable efforts, as required by applicable law, to direct the recipient to use your personal information in a manner consistent with this Privacy Policy. After such transfer, you may contact the recipient with any inquiries concerning the processing of your personal information.

Compliance with laws. We may disclose your personal information to comply with applicable law, to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, and to participate in litigation or investigations.

We will not sell or share your personal information to third parties to use for their own benefit. We may share non-identifiable data (i.e., non-personal, de-identifiable information that cannot be used to identify you) for any lawful business purpose without any obligation or accounting to you.

Depending on where you reside, you may have certain rights and choices regarding our processing of your personal information. These include:

• The right to know the categories and/or specific pieces of personal information collected about you, including whether that personal information is sold or disclosed and with whom it was shared.
• The right to correct your personal information.
• The right to request deletion of your personal information.
• The right to opt out of certain personal information processing.
• The right to have a copy of the personal information that we have about you in a common file format.

You may review, update, correct, and delete your Account Information in your account profile by logging into your account if you have created an account with us.

We will verify your identity in connection with any requests and take steps designed to ensure that only you or your authorized representative exercise these rights. If you are an authorized representative making a request, we may require and request additional information, including proof of power of attorney, to verify you are authorized to make the request.

There may be situations where we cannot grant your request. We will inform you if we deny a rights request and will provide an explanation of our actions and the reason(s) for the denial.

We will not restrict or deny you access to our products and services because of the choices you make in connection with your personal information but certain choices may affect our ability to deliver our Services.

We will ask for your consent to process your personal information in certain circumstances. You may withdraw your consent at any time; however, withdrawing your consent will not be retroactive and does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before the withdrawal.

You may exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal information by contacting us by email or by mail at the addresses listed in the Contact Information section below.

“Do Not Track” signals. Some Internet browsers may be configured to send “Do Not Track” signals to the online services that you visit. Our Sites are not designed to respond to “Do Not Track” signals. To find out more about “Do Not Track,” please visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com.

European Economic Area (EEA) and United Kingdom (UK) Residents. If you reside in the EEA or UK, please review the Additional Information for EEA/UK Residents section below.

You have the right at any time to prevent us from contacting you for marketing purposes. You may opt out of marketing-related emails by following the instructions contained at the bottom of our emails. You may also contact us at [email protected].

You may continue to receive Service-related and other administrative communications (e.g., updates to this Privacy Policy). Although we will remove your name from our mailing list after receiving your request, you may still receive mailings from us that were initiated prior to your opt-out request.

We use cookies and similar tracking technologies when you visit our Sites to help us understand your preferences and enhance our Services. Cookies are small text files stored in your browser that collect data about your interactions with our Sites.

We use both session cookies (which expire once you close your browser) and persistent cookies (which are stored on your browser for a set period or until you delete them). Persistent cookies help us to remember your preferences, recognize returning visitors, and improve the functionality and performance of our Sites over time.

First-party cookies are set by us on our Sites. They enable core site functionality such as your login status and user preferences. First-party cookies also help us understand how visitors interact with our Sites’ content and features. Third-party cookies are set by external services whose content or functionality is embedded on our Sites. This may include analytics providers, social media platforms, and advertising partners.

You can adjust your browser to block or delete all cookies. Be aware that disabling some cookies may affect the functionality and performance of our Sites.

We implement and maintain a combination of organizational, technical, and physical measures to protect the personal information we collect and process. However, no safeguards are completely secure, and we cannot guarantee or warrant the security of your personal information. Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for the circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on our Sites.

We keep personal information as long as it is reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy or otherwise in compliance with our data retention policies. Certain categories of personal information may be retained until the time limit for any legal challenges has expired or to comply with regulatory requirements regarding the retention of such personal information. Where applicable, if any personal information that we hold is no longer required for the purpose for which it was collected and no applicable law requires us to retain that information, we will take reasonable steps to de-identify or destroy the information.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from minors or persons under the age of 16, and our Services are not intended for individuals under the age of 16. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a minor or person under the age of 16, we will use reasonable efforts to delete such information from our files as soon as practicable.

Simons Foundation is headquartered in the United States. We may transfer your personal information between countries other than the country in which you initially provided your personal information. The countries to which we transfer personal information may not guarantee the same level of protection for personal information as the one in which you reside. However, we will handle your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy regardless of where your personal information is processed.

If you reside in the EEA or UK, please review the Additional Information for EEA/UK Residents section below.

Our Sites may contain links to other websites and services that are not operated or controlled by us (“Third-Party Services”). This Privacy Policy does not apply to Third-Party Services. We cannot take responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of those Third-Party Services. We encourage you to review and understand the privacy practices of any Third-Party Services before providing any information to or through them. Your interactions with the Third-Party Services are governed by the privacy policy of the third party that provides such services.

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify our users by updating the date of this Privacy Policy and posting it on our Sites. Where required by law, we will also provide notification of changes via e-mail (if you have an account where we have your contact information) or other reasonable means through our Services (which may include posting an announcement on our Sites). The revised versions of the Privacy Policy will be effective immediately (as indicated by the “Last Updated” date above) but will not apply retroactively.

Personal information. References to “personal information” in this Privacy Policy are equivalent to “personal data” governed by European data protection legislation.

Controller and Data Protection Officer. Unless stated otherwise in this Privacy Policy, or in an additional or supplemental privacy notice, The Simons Foundation, Inc., is the controller of your personal information for purposes of European data protection legislation. Clinical Research Associates LLC may also be a controller in other contexts.

Our Data Protection Officer’s contact information is:

Euan Robertson
160 Fifth Ave., 7th floor
New York, NY 10010
+1-646-908-6530

See the Contact Us section below for additional contact details.

Legal bases for processing. We collect and process your personal information for a variety of purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy relying on the following legal bases:

• Subject to consent. In some cases, we will ask for your consent to process your personal information. We may request your consent for certain activities, in particular for marketing (including from third parties), for placing certain cookies, and for processing your location information.
• For the performance of a contract. To fulfill our contractual obligations to you, such as account registration, facilitating or processing transactions you make with us, and contacting you about any issues with your use of our Services.
• To meet legal obligations. To comply with laws, regulations, court orders, or other legal obligations or to assist in an investigation
• For our legitimate interests. To operate our business and provide the Services, other than in performing our contractual obligations to you, and for our other “legitimate interests” in compliance with applicable law, except where overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms that require protection of personal information.

Additional rights. If you reside in the EEA or UK, you have the rights outlined in the Your Privacy Rights and Choices section above. In addition, under certain legal conditions, you may have the right to (i) restrict processing your personal information, (ii) object to processing your personal information, and (iii) lodge a complaint with a competent supervisory authority.

If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us at [email protected].

You can also write to us at:

Simons Foundation
Attn: Legal – Privacy
160 Fifth Ave., 7th Floor
New York, NY 10010