Update 21/02/2024: Modifications included in this updated version of the Terms and Conditions aim to update the dates of the Classification and Championship Phases and to ensure the quality of the Submissions establishing a minimal performance threshold and clarifying that the Prizes shall be granted to the top 25 Submissions that exceed said performance threshold (Modifications included in Clauses 1, 3, 4, 11 and 12).

Please kindly review the document thoroughly, download it here, and sign it before returning it to chaimeleon@quibim.com.

1. The Challenge

1.1. The ChAImeleon project aims to set up an EU-wide structured repository for health imaging data, and related clinical and molecular data, as an open source for artificial intelligence (the “Project”). 

1.2. The consortium of the Project is made up of 18 partners (the “ChAImeleon Consortium” or the “Organizer”). You may learn more about the ChAImeleon Consortium and the Project at the following website: https://chaimeleon.eu/ 

1.3. The Consortium is organizing this Open Challenge (the “Challenge”) to encourage AI developers to develop innovative AI-powered cancer management solutions, showing their machine learning skills and expertise.

1.4. The Challenge will take place from July 2023 up until February 29, 2024. For more details on the timeline of the Challenge, please consult the FAQ section.

2. Eligibility

2.1 The Challenge is open to individuals (i) who are at least eighteen (18) years old on the date of registration for the Challenge and (ii) prior acceptance by the Organizer, which will be notified by e-mail.

2.2 Participation in the Challenge constitutes the Participant’s full and unconditional agreement to and acceptance of these terms and conditions, otherwise referred to as rules of the Challenge (“Terms”). The term “you” refers to you, the “Participant”. 

2.3 Members or employees of the ChAImeleon Consortium partners and their respective companies, affiliates, and subsidiaries, or individuals providing services to them during the Challenge, are not eligible to participate in the Challenge, hence, do not qualify for awards and will not be listed in the leaderboard.

2.4 Participation in the Challenge is precluded to any individual that may have access to additional information (as established under Article 4.5 of  Regulation (EU) no. 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regards to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, the “GDPR”) that under reasonable means would allow to attribute the Data (as defined in Clause 5.1 of this Terms) to specific data subjects. By accepting these Terms, Participants unequivocally declare that they have no access to information that may allow for the identification of data subjects and that they are not in violation of this provision.

3. Application

3.1 Applications will be accepted from July 3, 2023 until the end of the Classification Phase (the “Application Period”).

3.2 Every Participant must sign up for a Grand-Challenge account (at www.grand-challenge.org), which shall be verified, and send the Organizer (to chaimeleon@quibim.com) an e-mail requesting to participate in the Challenge with a signed version of these Terms attached to it (click here for a downloadable version), duly fulfilled with all information requested. 

3.3 After careful assessment, the Organizer will notify the selected Participants of their acceptance to participate in the Challenge and will send data access links to them, as established in Clause 5.1.

3.4 Participants should register with their real names, affiliation (including the full name of the university/institute/company) and affiliation e-mails. Anonymous participation is not allowed, and to qualify for ranking on the leaderboard, true names and affiliations must be displayed accurately on Participants’ verified Grand-Challenge profiles.

3.5 Each Participant can only be a member of a single team.

3.6 Any individual participating with multiple or duplicate Grand-Challenge profiles will be disqualified.

3.7 The Organizer reserves the right to verify the eligibility of Participants and check their identities and reserves the right of admission based on its sole discretion. 

3.8 Participants shall follow relevant institutional policies and applicable European and national laws and regulations (if any) concerning the completion of ethics review or approval that may be required for participation in the Challenge. When applicable due to their own circumstances, Participants shall submit an ethical approval validly issued by a duly accredited Ethics Committee and an ethical impact assessment (e.g. ALTAI methodology).

3.9 For more details on the registration process, please consult the Notice and FAQ sections.

4. Participation 

4.1 Details on technical requisites to be followed for participation in the Challenge, the clinical questions to be solved by Participants, and the different phases of the Challenge can be found in the Overview, the FAQ and the How to Participate sections, which are hereby incorporated by reference and read, accepted and agreed upon by the Participants’ participation in the Challenge.

4.2 The Classification Phase will run from July 2023 up until 11:59 pm CEST on January 15, 2024. During the Classification Phase, Participants will be able to download a highly controlled dataset, entailing post-processed (i.e., harmonized) images associated with concrete clinical variables. Participants will use their own resources to train the models. 

4.3 From this phase, the top 40 participants on the leaderboard will be selected to move on to the Championship Phase, which will run from 00:00 am CEST on January 16, 2024 up until 11:59 pm CEST on February 29, 2024, in the ChAImeleon Platform (the “Platform”). They will be notified using the email address used to register, as per Clause 3.2.

4.4 Participants acknowledge and accept that acceptance of the terms and conditions of the Platform shall be required in order to progress in the Challenge and participate in the Championship Phase.

4.5 The Organizer will not reimburse any expenses or costs for Participants.

5. Data 

5.1 During the Classification Phase a highly controlled dataset will be made open with harmonized images in NIfTI format with limited clinical variables (which will be accessible through a single-access link), and during the Championship Phase, Participants will have access to the Platform where certain original and associated clinical data, together with some image pre-processing and harmonization tools, will be shared with the Participants (the “Data”).

5.2 To ensure a fair comparison, Participants are not allowed to use any additional data. Using pre-trained models is allowed only if open-sourced.

5.3 Data always remains the sole property of the Organizer and Participants acknowledge and accept that they will not acquire any intellectual property right or any other right over the Data, other than as set forth herein. 

5.4 The Organizer grants the Participants a royalty-free, non-sublicensable, non-transferable, non-commercial, non-exclusive, revocable license to use the Data for the Challenge.

5.5 Participants expressly agree to exclusively use the provided Data for participation in the Challenge and not to distribute, transfer, share or disclose it in any way or form. 

5.6 After the Challenge (or any time before upon request by the Organizer), the Participants must destroy all Data disclosed by the Organizer in their possession, stored electronically and/or on record-bearing media as well as any copies thereof. Upon request by the Organizer, Participants shall confirm in writing within (14) fourteen days such destruction of the Data and any copies thereof.

5.7 Participants will not reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Data or the Platform, or encourage or assist any third party in doing so.

5.8 Participants will not, either alone or in concert with any other information, make any effort to identify or contact individuals who are or may be the source of the information in the Data and are strictly prohibited from generating or using images or comparable representations of the face, head, or body for facial recognition, reidentification, or other purposes that could allow the identities of individuals to be readily ascertained.

5.9 Participants expressly agree not to make more than one account for accessing and/ or downloading the Data (as defined in Section 5 of these Terms) and submitting their entries (“Submissions”). 

6. Intellectual Property

6.1 Participants warrant that their Submissions are their original work and, as such, they are the sole and exclusive owners and rights holders of their respective Submissions. Participants shall have the right to make the Submission and grant all required licenses. 

6.2 Participants agree not to make any Submission that infringes any third-party proprietary rights, intellectual property rights, industrial property rights, personal or moral rights, or any other rights, including, without limitation, copyright, patent, trade secret, privacy or confidentiality obligations.

6.3 The ownership of any intellectual property developed by the Participants during and within the scope of the Challenge will remain with the Participants. 

6.4 By joining the Challenge, Participants expressly authorize the Organizer to, within the scope of the Project, publish, communicate, and disclose orally, graphically, or in writing, and with no compensation involved, their Submissions.

6.5 The Participants shall not acquire any full or partial intellectual property right (or any other rights of any kind) over the Challenge, the Project, the Platform or the Consortium, nor on any names or trademarks associated with them, used alone, in association with or as part of another word or name.

7. Personal Data

7.1 The Organizer may collect personal data (understood as information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual) from the Participants in the application process and throughout the Challenge. This personal data will only be used for communication by the Organizer with the Participants relating to the Challenge and any Challenge-related information, such as the distribution of the Prizes.

7.2 Explicit consent for any other uses of Participants’ personal data will be requested if needed.

7.3 By entering the Challenge, Participants agree to give the Organizer access to the information they provide. This includes information you provide by your participation in the Challenge, forums or message boards, the information you provide to us if you contact us (for example, to report a problem or raise a query or comment), and details of the resources accessed.

7.4 In accordance with GDPR, Participants may exercise their rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, objection and portability by contacting the Organizer via the Email Organizers section. 

7.5 Participants will not use the Data, either alone or in concert with any other information, to make any effort to identify or contact individuals who are or may be the source of the information in the Data. 

7.6 Privacy Policies of the Platform apply. 

8. Confidentiality

8.1 All Confidential Information disclosed by the Organizer to Participants in connection with the Challenge:

- shall be used by Participants exclusively for participation in the Challenge;

- must not be distributed or disclosed in any way or form by Participants;

- must be kept confidential by Participants; and

- remains the sole property of the Organizer. 

8.2 "Confidential Information" means any information and data, including, but not limited to, the Data (as defined in Clause 5.1 of this Terms), any kind of business, commercial, code, dataset or technical information, and data disclosed in connection with the Challenge irrespective of the medium in which such information or data is embedded. 

8.3 After the Challenge (or any time before upon request by the Organizer), the Participants must destroy all Confidential Information disclosed by the Organizer in their possession, including Confidential Information stored electronically and/or on record-bearing media as well as any copies thereof.

9. License

9.1 Every Participant grants the Organizer a sublicensable, royalty-free license for the use of Participant’s Submissions if they are chosen by the Organizer (discretionally) after the end of the Challenge, for implementation in the Platform within the scope of the Project. 

9.2 The further terms for licensing will, in such an event, be negotiated individually between the selected Participants and the Organizer under fair conditions. 

9.3 Nevertheless, the Participants agree that the license shall be granted on a royalty-free basis, given the research and scientific purpose of the Project itself. 

10. Representations & Warranties 

10.1 Participants represent and warrant that:

(i) The posting of your content (the “Content”) within the scope of your participation in the Challenge (including the information you provide by your participation in the Challenge in forums or message boards) does not violate the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights, or any other rights of any person.

(ii) The Content will not cause the Organizer to breach any law, regulation, code, or other legal obligation and will not or could not be reasonably considered defamatory, disparaging, seditious, offensive, threatening, abusive, in breach of confidence or breach of privacy.

(iii) The Content does not contain software viruses, or any other computer code, files, or programs designed to interrupt, destroy, or limit the functionality of any computer software, hardware, or telecommunications equipment.

10.2 The Organizer reserves the right to modify or remove any Content at any time.

11. Verification of Submissions

11.1 After the Championship Phase has finished, the final rank will showcase the top 25 Submissions that have exceeded the minimum quality and performance threshold of 0.6(the “Winning Submissions”), and the Participants who had submitted said Winning Submissions (the “Winners”) will be notified using the email address associated with the verified Grand-Challenge account used to register.

11.2 Participants agree that the decision on the Winning Submissions shall be final and binding for all Participants and shall not be subject to dispute in a court of law. In accordance with Clause 4.1 above, other technical requisites to be followed for participation in the Challenge, duly disclosed to the Participants in the Overview, FAQ, or How to Participate sections may be taken into consideration by the Organizer for the selection of the Winning Submissions and the award of the Prizes. Participants shall have no right to a justification of the decisions made by the Organizer.

11.3 The award of the Prizes (as defined in Clause 12.2) may be subject to verification of the identity, qualifications, and role of the Participants in the creation of the Winning Submissions. 

11.4 The Organizer may deem a Participant ineligible to win if the Organizer reasonably believes that the Participant has attempted to undermine the legitimate operation of the Challenge by cheating, deception, or other unfair or dishonest practices.

11.5 In the event of a disqualification, the Organizer may award the applicable Prize to an alternate Participant.

11.6 The Organizer is not responsible for Submissions not received due to lost, failed, delayed or interrupted connections or miscommunications or other electronic malfunctions.

12. Monetary Prizes & Validation

12.1 After the Championship Phase has finished, the Winners will be notified by e-mail, and the Final Rank of the Winning Submissions  will be announced by early March 2024. 

12.2 Monetary prizes will be payable to the Winning Submissions (the “Prizes”) as follows:

12.3 The Prizes will be sent wired to the Winners' bank accounts only after receipt by the Organizer of the required information or documentation (if any) for the delivery of the Prizes. Failure to provide the information necessary for the delivery of a Prize may result in delayed Prize delivery, disqualification of the Winner, or forfeiture of a Prize.

12.4 The Organizer shall have the right to make a Prize substitution of equivalent or greater value. The Organizer will not award a Prize if no eligible Submissions are entered in the Challenge or considered eligible for the Prizes, taking into particular consideration ranking within the top 25 of the leaderboard and the minimum quality and performance threshold established in Clause 11.1.

12.5 Winners are responsible for any fees associated with receiving or using a Prize, including but not limited to wiring fees. 

12.6 Winners are responsible for reporting and paying all applicable taxes in their jurisdiction of residence. The Organizer reserves the right to withhold a portion of the prize amount to comply with the relevant tax laws.

12.7 By participating in the Challenge, Participants acknowledge and warrant that Organizer may select (discretionally) their Submissions (i.e., AI solutions developed through the Challenge) for testing them in a clinical setting, through an in-silico validation, within the scope of the Project. Particularly, Work Package 9 of the grant agreement (no. 952172), with the aim of accelerating the path to market of Winners’ AI solutions (i.e. Winning Solutions), at no cost to them. Participants agree to allow the testing and to actively participate in it, engaging with the Organizer in whatever is needed (giving feedback on their user experience and providing metrics on the performance of their AI-based solutions).

13. Publications & Acknowledgments

13.1 Participants agree to acknowledge the Project and the Organizer in publications derived from their Submissions and the use of the Data and agree to obey the citation rules. Please acknowledge the ChAImeleon Project in your publications as follows: 

“De-identified data used in the development of this solution were prepared and provided by the ChAImeleon Project within the Open Challenges organized by its Consortium, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 952172, entitled ‘Accelerating the lab to market transition of AI tools for cancer management’.”

13.2 After the Challenge has finished, the Organizer may invite, discretionally, a reduced number of the Winners to write a joint peer-reviewed journal paper that performs a complete analysis of the results and highlights the key findings and methods. More information on this will be provided to the selected individuals after the Challenge and conditions may vary according to the development of the Challenge itself.

14. Termination

14.1 The Organizer may terminate your participation in the Challenge in writing (by e-mail) if you breach these Terms. This termination will take effect immediately after such termination e-mail has been sent.

14.2 We shall not be liable to you or any third party for any claims or damages arising out of any termination or suspension, or any other actions taken by the Organizer in connection therewith.

14.3 Participants may drop out of the Challenge and forego any further participation. However, they will not be able to retract their prior submissions till that point in time.

15. Miscellaneous

15.1 If a virus, bug, bot, catastrophic event, or any other unforeseen or unexpected event that cannot be reasonably anticipated or controlled (also referred to as force majeure) affects the fairness and integrity of the Challenge, the Organizer has the right to cancel, change, or suspend the Challenge. This right is reserved whether the event is due to human or technical error. If a solution cannot be found to restore the integrity of the Challenge, the organisation reserves the right to select Winners from among all eligible Submissions received before the Challenge needs to be cancelled, changed or suspended.

15.2 Computer “hacking” is unlawful. If any Participant attempts to compromise the integrity or the legitimate operation of the Challenge by hacking or by cheating or committing fraud in any way, the Organizer may claim damages to the fullest extent permitted by law.

15.3 The Organizer reserves the right to modify these Terms at any time, without warning or notice, and to suspend, withdraw or cancel the Challenge for any reason and at any time, at its sole discretion and without incurring any liability. 

15.4 The execution of the Challenge and the interpretation and enforcement of these Terms shall be exclusively governed by and construed by the laws of Spain. Any conflict regarding the Challenge or these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Spain.

15.5 If you have any questions about these Terms, please get in touch with us via the Email Organizers section.