Questions we get a lot.

We're in open beta. The Helikon Method and its tools are grounded in peer-reviewed strategic-alliance research and our own primary research; the platform itself is in active development. Expect us to release new features regularly and the occasional rough edge. If you hit something broken, tell us. That's why we're out in the open.

Pricing, feature depth, and integration coverage. Beta users keep their data, and any material change to terms or pricing is announced 30 days in advance by in-app notice and email. We'll communicate the specific GA pricing transition for beta users well before it takes effect.

Yes. Beta is safe for active use, with the caveats above. We back up your data daily and notify you of any breaking changes at least 30 days in advance. Institutional pilots include additional safeguards; reach out via our contact form for the current terms.

Helikon Labs is an AI-powered collaboration platform that connects university researchers with industry partners for R&D partnerships. The platform uses semantic search across 689,000+ researcher profiles, 27.3 million publications, and 2.9 million patents to find high-quality partnership opportunities. Whether you're a researcher looking for industry collaborators or an R&D director seeking academic expertise, Helikon Labs helps you manage the entire partnership lifecycle, from first match through evaluation.

Sign up with your institutional or professional email, then follow the 5-step onboarding wizard: select your role (Researcher, Industry, Administrator, Student/Postdoc, or Advisor), enter your institution and department, add research expertise keywords, optionally import your publications using your ORCID iD, and set your collaboration preferences. The more complete your profile, the better your AI match quality. You can always update your profile later from the Profile page.

The Helikon Method is our framework for managing university-industry R&D partnerships, organized under the MUSE mnemonic: Match (finding and evaluating potential partners), Unite (forming agreements and governance structures), Steward (managing ongoing collaboration, milestones, and IP), and Evaluate (measuring outcomes and capturing lessons learned). Every feature in the platform maps to one of these four phases. The name comes from Mount Helikon in Greece, the mythological home of the Muses and a place of creative convergence.

The framework draws on peer-reviewed strategic-alliance research (Kale & Singh, Hoang & Rothaermel, Dyer & Singh), transaction-cost economics (Poppo & Zenger), and Helikon Labs' primary research presented at the R&D Management Conference (Flowers & Roadman, 2024), a multi-method study of digital transformation in university-industry collaborations. Each MUSE phase is anchored to a specific evidence base, cited inline in the product and on the landing page.

Absolutely. Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers can create profiles, appear in discovery results, message potential collaborators, and join projects. The Free plan gives you access to AI match suggestions (4 partner matches per week), literature and patent search, messaging up to 10 new people per month, and 2 active projects. Many students use the platform to identify potential industry sponsors for their research, find collaborators at other institutions, or explore career opportunities in industry R&D.

Our matching engine uses vector embeddings generated from your complete research profile (publications, patents, expertise keywords, collaboration history, and stated interests). When you search for partners or receive weekly match suggestions, the system performs semantic similarity search across our database to find researchers and projects with complementary strengths. Every plan sees the full match breakdown — sub-scores for research overlap, expertise alignment, recency, and citation impact. Pro adds unlimited AI-written analysis of why each match was suggested.

Our researcher database is built from an open academic dataset covering 689,000+ researcher profiles linked to 27.3 million publications from OpenAlex and 2.9 million patents from USPTO PatentsView. Institution data comes from the Research Organization Registry (ROR). All of it is publicly available academic information. Platform users can enhance their profiles beyond that baseline by adding expertise keywords, collaboration preferences, and additional publications.

The compatibility percentage (e.g., 92%) represents how well a potential partner aligns with your research profile across multiple dimensions, including research focus, expertise, and collaboration interests. Higher scores indicate stronger alignment. Every plan sees the overall score and the full sub-score breakdown behind it. The AI-written explanation of why a match was suggested is capped at 10 per month on Free and unlimited on Pro and above.

Yes. The Discover page has dedicated Literature and Patents tabs available on all plans. You can search by keywords, filter by year range, journal, citation count (for publications), or CPC codes and jurisdiction (for patents). Results link to the original source documents. You can save items to your Portfolio for later reference. Free users can save up to 50 items; Pro and higher plans have unlimited saves.

AI match suggestions refresh weekly. Free dashboards show 4 researcher and 4 project matches; Pro, Team and Institutional dashboards show up to 12 of each. Matches are recalculated whenever you update your profile. Adding new publications, expertise keywords, or collaboration preferences can significantly change your match results. You can also run unlimited on-demand Partner Searches from the Discover page on every plan — the Pro unlock is unlimited AI match explanations (Free gets 10 a month; the numeric sub-scores are free on every plan).

Go to My Projects and click "Create New Project." Fill in the project title, description, collaboration type, required expertise, timeline, and budget range. Set visibility to Everyone (discoverable by all signed-in users), Organization only (visible to your institution), or Private (invited members only). Free-plan projects are always visible to Everyone; Organization-only and Private visibility are available on Pro and higher. Once created, you can invite collaborators by searching for platform users or sending email invitations to non-users. Free users can have 2 active projects with up to 3 members. Completed, cancelled and archived projects stop counting, so finishing one frees a slot. Pro allows 10 projects with unlimited members. Team and Institutional have no caps on projects or members.

The platform supports nine collaboration types. Five are featured on our landing page: Sponsored Research, Commercial & Joint Development, Licensing, Advisory & Talent, and Student Programs. Four additional models (Investment, Non-Profit & Social Impact, Facilities & Resources, and Knowledge & Standards) are available in Discover filters and project creation. Each type has tailored project templates and milestone structures.

Yes. Each project workspace includes milestone tracking (with due dates, status indicators, and assignees), a shared file repository, an activity log, and a team member list. Free users can create up to 5 milestones per project with 250 MB of file storage. Pro users have unlimited milestones with 5 GB storage. Team plans include 25 GB storage. Institutional plans include 50 GB storage.

The Partnership Pipeline is a CRM-style Kanban board available to Pro and higher plans. It lets you track partnership opportunities through six stages: Lead, Initial Contact, In Discussion, Agreement, Active Partnership, and Completed. Each opportunity card shows the partner, project, next action, and notes. You can drag cards between stages, export pipeline data as CSV, and view funnel analytics showing conversion rates at each stage.

Helikon Labs uses TLS 1.3 encryption for all data in transit and AES-256 for data at rest. We host on standard commercial cloud infrastructure with industry-standard access controls. Your research data, partnership conversations, and project files are never shared with third parties without your explicit consent.

Your profile (name, institution, expertise, publications) is visible to other signed-in platform users — that's what powers discovery and matching, and it isn't on the public internet. Your email address is always private to you. Projects have three visibility levels: Everyone (any signed-in user can discover and view a summary), Organization only (your institution), or Private (invited members only). Free-plan projects are always visible to Everyone; Private and Organization-only visibility require Pro or higher. Project details like budgets, compliance status, and files are only visible to project members regardless of visibility. Conversations and files are always private to participants.

We treat data protection as a product commitment, not just a legal one. Today that means TLS 1.3 in transit, AES-256 at rest, and least-privilege access controls on our infrastructure. Formal compliance certifications (including SOC 2, and dedicated FERPA and GDPR programs for institutional customers) are on our roadmap and not yet in effect. If your institution has a specific compliance requirement, contact us and we'll share where we are on the path toward it.

Pro and higher plan users can export their matches, contacts, portfolio, and project data as CSV files from Settings → Subscription & Billing. All users can request a complete data export (all profile data, messages, projects, and files) or permanent account deletion from Settings → Account. Data deletion is permanent and cannot be reversed. We recommend exporting your data first.

The Free plan includes: full profile creation and discovery visibility, 4 AI match suggestions per week, unlimited Partner Searches, literature and patent search (unlimited), messaging up to 10 new people per month with unlimited replies in existing conversations, 5 meetings per month, 50 follows, 50 saved portfolio items, 2 active projects (3 members, 5 milestones each), 250 MB file storage, and activity feed access. You'll see the overall match score and its full sub-score breakdown, plus 10 AI match explanations a month — unlimited explanations are the Pro upgrade. Free projects are public to other members; private projects need Pro.

Start a free 14-day trial of Pro with no credit card required. You get immediate access to all Pro features: 12 AI partner matches a week with unlimited AI explanations, 50 meetings per month, the Partnership Pipeline, Advanced Discover filters, ORCID auto-import, project analytics, and CSV data export. At the end of 14 days, you'll be prompted to subscribe ($29/month, $69.60/quarter, or $243.60/year) or your account reverts to the Free plan. No data is lost.

Institutional plans are priced by seat count and billed annually, starting at 25 seats (from $4,000/year): $160 per seat per year at 25–75 seats, $125 per seat at 76–200 seats, and $120 per seat at 201+ seats, with custom quotes for large deployments. Every institutional plan includes a 90-day pilot. Institutional-exclusive features include: compliance dashboard, department analytics with roll-up reporting, contract template library, and a dedicated account manager. SSO, custom branding, and API access are coming soon. Contact our sales team for a custom quote.

Yes. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel from Settings → Subscription at any time. If you downgrade from Pro to Free, you retain Pro features until your current billing period ends. Your profile, projects, conversations, and files are preserved; you'll just have reduced limits on new actions. Switching from monthly to quarterly or annual billing gives you a prorated credit; quarterly billing saves 20% and annual billing saves 30% on both Pro and Team.

Technology Transfer Offices can use the Institutional plan to centralize partnership management across departments. The compliance dashboard tracks NDAs and institutional agreements. The Partnership Pipeline provides a shared view of all active and prospective partnerships. Department analytics show engagement metrics, match success rates, and cross-department collaboration patterns. TTO administrators can manage seats, set visibility policies, and generate reports for leadership.

Yes. Institutional plans support department-wide onboarding with seat-based pricing. Your dedicated account manager helps with bulk user setup and training sessions. SSO integration (SAML/OAuth) is on the roadmap and will be available to institutional plans when it ships. Researchers in your department get full access to all platform features with shared compliance tools and analytics. The 90-day pilot lets your team evaluate the platform before committing to an annual plan.

You can add your ORCID iD to your profile and use it to import your publications from public sources like OpenAlex. This enhances your profile completeness and match quality without manual data entry. Today the iD is shown exactly as you provide it, as a link to your public ORCID record. Formal ORCID-verified sign-in — with a verification badge — is planned for a future release and isn't available yet. You can add or update your ORCID iD anytime from your Profile page.

Use the Partner Search on the Discover page to describe your R&D challenge in natural language. The AI engine semantically searches across 689,000+ researcher profiles to find academics with relevant expertise, publications, and patents. Filter by institution type, field, country, and h-index. Each result shows a compatibility score, expertise tags, and recent publications. Pro users see full match explanations and can save unlimited results to their portfolio.

Yes. The Partnership Pipeline (Pro and higher plans) provides a Kanban board to track opportunities from Lead through Active Partnership to Completed. Industry users commonly use it to manage multiple university relationships at once: tracking which researchers they've contacted, which partnerships are in negotiation, and which are actively producing results. The pipeline supports CSV export for integration with your CRM, and funnel analytics show conversion rates at each stage.

Project visibility controls let you restrict access to invited team members only (Private) or to your institution (Organization only) — and even on projects visible to Everyone, budgets, compliance status, and files are member-only. The Institutional plan includes a contract template library with standard NDA, MTA, SRA, and IP assignment agreements. File sharing within projects uses the same encryption as the rest of the platform. We recommend establishing an NDA before sharing sensitive R&D data through any channel.