CAPIBARA Collaboration Agreement#

Version 1.0 | Effective Date: January 1, 2026#

What is CAPIBARA?#

CAPIBARA is an informal student research collaboration focused on space science and high-energy astrophysics. We’re a group of students learning by doing — building instruments, analyzing data, and doing real science together.

Important: This is not a legally registered organization. It’s a volunteer collaboration of students and advisors working together on shared research interests.

Key Definitions#

  • Programme Lead: Student leading a specific programme (CAPIBARA-CRD or CAPIBARA-COSMOS). Currently: Lluc Soler (CRD), Joan Alcaide (COSMOS)

  • Advisory Board: Faculty or senior scientists who mentor us (voluntary, informal)

  • Member: Anyone who’s joined and contributes regularly

  • Active Member: Someone who’s contributed in the past 6 months

  • Consensus: When most people (~2/3) agree on something important

  • Minor: Someone under 18 years old

How We’re Organized#

Current Structure (~10 students):

  • Programme Leads: Students who coordinate each project (CRD, COSMOS)

  • Members: Everyone who actively contributes

  • Advisors: Faculty/professionals who help when we need guidance

Host Institutions: Our home universities (currently informal partnerships)

How We Make Decisions#

Day-to-day stuff: Programme Leads decide or ask the team
Important things (new policies, major changes): We discuss and vote if needed — usually aim for ~2/3 agreement
New members: Programme Lead approves after application
Urgent matters: Programme Leads decide and inform everyone

Philosophy: We try to be democratic but practical. With a small group, we mostly reach consensus through discussion.

Intellectual Property (Open Science)#

We believe in open science:

  • Software: Open source (MIT or BSD-3-Clause license)

  • Hardware: Open hardware (CERN-OHL-P-2.0 license)

  • Documentation: Creative Commons (CC-BY 4.0)

  • Data: Public after 6 months (gives us time to analyze it first)

  • Papers: Must acknowledge “CAPIBARA Collaboration”

  • Branding: CAPIBARA name/logo stays with the collaboration

Why? So others can learn from our work and we can learn from theirs.

Changes to This Agreement#

We can update this as we learn and grow. Major changes need discussion and general agreement (~2/3 of active members).

Rules for Members Under 18#

If you’re under 18, your parent/guardian must:

  • Complete the Parental Consent Form

  • Be okay with you participating in online research activities

  • Understand the time commitment (~2 hours/week)

Safety rules:

  • No private chats between adults and minors (all communication in groups)

  • Parents can observe any meetings/activities

  • Parents can withdraw consent anytime

Why? To keep everyone safe and make sure parents know what their kids are doing.

Governing Law#

Since we’re international and informal:

  • We try to follow GDPR principles for privacy (good baseline)

  • You’re responsible for following your own country’s/institution’s laws

  • If there are disputes, we talk them out (see Code of Conduct)

Leaving the Collaboration#

Voluntary: You can leave anytime — just let the Programme Lead know. We’ll:

  • Remove your GitHub access within a week

  • Handle any in-progress authorship fairly (see Authorship Policy)

  • Delete your personal data if you want (see Privacy Policy)

  • You can stay listed as “Alumni” if you’d like

Being Removed: If someone seriously violates the Code of Conduct or Membership Policy, they may be removed. See those policies for details.

Confidentiality#

Keep private:

  • Unpublished results (until we publish them)

  • Internal discussions and disagreements

  • Other people’s personal information

  • Anything explicitly marked “don’t share”

OK to share:

  • Public GitHub stuff

  • Published papers

  • Your own work (with proper attribution)

  • General info about the collaboration

With your advisor: It’s fine to discuss your work with your supervisor/advisor.

What If the Collaboration Ends?#

If CAPIBARA ever dissolves (hopefully not!):

  • Public GitHub repos stay public forever (that’s how GitHub works)

  • We’ll archive our work appropriately

  • Personal data gets deleted

  • In-progress papers get finished or properly attributed