Terms & Conditions

Submitting a collaboration proposal

Before proceeding with submitting your solution on Unilever Foundry’s application portal, please ensure that any information you provide does not require to be kept confidential by Unilever Foundry*, or any Unilever group company, and their employees. If we proceed to any confidential discussions about your submission, you will be asked to sign a separate agreement with Unilever so that any confidential information is protected.

Before proceeding, you must be able to agree with all of the following statements and indicate your agreement by ticking the box on the application portal:

• I understand that the information being disclosed will be reviewed and evaluated independently by Unilever Foundry.

• I am submitting information with the express intention that it imposes no confidentiality obligations on any company of the Unilever Group (which is controlled by Unilever PLC, in London, United Kingdom) or on Unilever Foundry or on any of their employees.

• Furthermore, my submission does not breach any confidentiality obligations that I owe to others.

• There is no legal reason why I cannot submit information. I am not underage or otherwise legally incompetent.

• I am relying solely on my own IP rights to protect the contents of my submission.

• By making a submission, I am not granting, other than for the purpose of evaluation, any rights in relation to any patent, copyright or design. I am not relying on any company of the Unilever Group or Unilever Foundry in any way for legal advice, including (but not limited to) whether the contents of my submission can be protected under any IP law.

• I recognise that any company of the Unilever Group may already be independently working on the same technology as covered by my submission.

• I agree that no contractual obligation or working relationship is being created between myself and any company of the Unilever Group by submitting this information.

• I recognize that I will be asked to provide information which is personal to me, such as name and e-mail address, such that Unilever Foundry may process this information in order to evaluate my submission.

• If the submission is of interest, I may be required to sign a further Agreement with Unilever Foundry so that any confidential information, that is subsequently shared, is protected.

*Unilever Foundry is part of Unilever Group, located in Unilever House, 100 Victoria Embankment, London EC4Y 0DY United Kingdom.

1. Operation of the Site

1. Operation of the Site

The Site is provided by Unilever UK Central Resources Ltd for use by any individual or third party wishing to connect with Unilever through the Unilever Foundry (the "Parties"). This site is also used by Unilever Group companies* (individually and collectively referred to as "Unilever", "we", "us" and "our").

2. The Unilever Foundry

These Terms of Use govern your use of the Site and any applications you submit on the Site to the Unilever Foundry ("The Foundry"). The Foundry brings an ‘outside-in’ perspective to help teams across Unilever address big challenges and enhance their longer-term strategies through collaboration with start-ups/scale-ups and innovation experts. By using our knowledge of new technologies and connections across the global ecosystem of innovators, academics, investors and government bodies, we identify, test and validate the potential of new solutions. 

 3. Services

Your use of the Site and any applications, software, data, products, competitions, prize draws, and any other services provided to you on, or from, or through the Site by Unilever (collectively called the "Services"), is subject to the terms of a legal agreement between you and Unilever. In addition to these Terms of Use, the legal agreement is made up of (i) the Privacy Notice and (ii) the Cookie Notice (collectively called the "Unilever Policies"). To the extent of any conflict between the Terms of Use and any other Unilever Policies, the Terms of Use shall prevail.

FOUNDRY PARTNERSHIP

4. Confidentiality

As part of the collaboration process, you are advised to share non-confidential information only. If confidential information is shared, this may result in your application being rejected.

Prior to any confidential discussions, you will be asked to sign a separate non-disclosure agreement with Unilever so that any confidential information that is subsequently shared, is protected.

If you submit an idea or suggestion as part of your submission or during the pilot, you acknowledge that Unilever, a Unilever Group company or a third party acting on its/their behalf, may have previously worked on or may be working on the same or a similar idea. By submitting your idea, you agree that we may continue to develop the idea (or a similar idea) independently of, and without acknowledging, your idea.

5. Intellectual Property

You warrant that you own the rights in any information you share with Unilever in your application and any information supplied to Unilever does not infringe the intellectual property rights, confidentiality or the rights of any third party. You will retain ownership of all protected intellectual property included your application. In the event that your proposal is selected to pilot, you will be required to enter into a mutually agreed contract with Unilever which will set out the commercial terms of the pilot, including the rights and obligations relating to the parties' respective intellectual property.

GENERAL

6. Changes to these Terms of Use

You agree that we may change or revise these Terms of Use from time to time by updating this posting on the Site, and that such changes will take effect immediately upon our posting, so please check these Terms of Use when you visit the Site to keep up to date. Your use of the Site and your participation in the application process reaffirms your continuing agreement to the then-current Terms of Use.

7. Privacy

Unilever takes your privacy very seriously and will use and protect any personal information you provide on this website in accordance with our Privacy Notice.

8. Disclaimer

The material on the Site (including any graphics, software, digital content, recommendations or other materials) and any material made available through the Site is provided "as is" and without conditions or warranties of any kind, either express or implied.

To the fullest extent permissible pursuant to applicable law, Unilever expressly disclaims all conditions and warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including, but not limited to all implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement. Unilever makes no warranty that (i) the operation of the Site will meet your requirements; (ii) access to the Site will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, free of viruses, worms, trojan horses or other harmful components, or free of defects or errors; (iii) the results that may be obtained from the use of the Site will be accurate or reliable; or (iv) defects will be corrected.

9. Severability

If any provision of these Terms of Use shall be found to be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from these Terms of Use and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.

10. Waiver

No failure on the part of Unilever to enforce any part of these Terms of Use shall constitute a waiver of any of Unilever's rights under these Terms of Use whether for past or future actions on the part of any person.

11. Applicable Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms of Use and any disputes arising under or related to these Terms of Use (whether in contract, tort (including negligence), statute or otherwise) will be governed by the laws of England and Wales, without reference to its conflicts of law principles. Any legal actions, suits or proceedings arising out of these Terms of Use (whether in contract, tort (including negligence), statute or otherwise) will be brought exclusively in England and Wales, and you hereby accept and submit to the personal jurisdiction of these courts with respect to any legal actions, suits or proceedings arising out of these Terms of Use.

*For the purpose of these Terms of Use, the Unilever Group means Unilever PLC, Unilever NV and any company in which either or both together directly owns or controls the voting rights attaching to not less than 50% of the issued share capital, or controls directly or indirectly the appointment of a majority of the board of management, and references to a member of the Unilever Group or a Unilever Group company shall be construed accordingly.