Vanderhelm Research operates under a single revenue model. The firm is funded by institutional subscription, library access fees, and corporate research licences purchased through standard commercial terms. No vendor, platform, agency, contractor, or government body pays for inclusion, ranking, or favourable coverage in any publication issued under the Vanderhelm masthead.

The firm holds no equity positions in the companies it audits, accepts no commission or success payment of any kind, and declines all forms of sponsored content. This funding model is a structural rule rather than a stated aspiration. It is audited annually by the firm’s external accountants and reviewed quarterly by the Office of the Editor. The resulting research output is, by design, indifferent to the commercial fortunes of the entities it analyses.

Every Vanderhelm audit is constructed on a primary-source mandate. Analysts operate either through direct relationships with the entities under examination or through structured panels of paying customers whose participation is documented and disclosed. Secondary sources are used only for contextual scaffolding and are never load-bearing in the firm’s conclusions.

Audits are subject to a triple-blind review process. The first review verifies data integrity against primary records. The second tests the analytical argument for internal consistency. The third applies a public-interest filter, asking whether the conclusion serves a buyer of the research rather than a seller. Audits that fail any of the three reviews are returned for revision or withdrawn before publication.

Every Vanderhelm publication is attributable to a named author and a named reviewer. Authors are accountable for the analytical conclusions of the publication. Reviewers are accountable for the methodological integrity. Both names appear on the publication and remain accountable for the work for the entire period the publication remains in the public archive.

The firm does not publish anonymous research. The firm does not publish under collective bylines that obscure individual authorship. Where a publication draws on contributions from multiple researchers, all contributors are listed on the masthead in descending order of contribution.

Quantitative claims in Vanderhelm publications are supported by either named primary sources, anonymised panel data drawn from the firm’s research subjects, or third-party data sets identified in the publication’s references list. The firm does not publish statistics generated by extrapolation or projection without explicit identification of the model and its assumptions.

Where a publication relies on customer panels, the panel size, the sampling methodology, and the date range of the data collection are disclosed in the methodology section of the publication. Where a publication relies on third-party data, the source is named in the references list and the date of access is recorded.

Analysts who hold a financial interest in an entity under audit are removed from the publication’s editorial chain before research begins. This includes equity holdings, debt instruments, vendor contracts in any non-trivial amount, and family-member equity exposure. Analysts who develop a financial interest during the course of an audit are required to disclose it immediately and are removed from the project.

The firm maintains an internal register of conflict declarations covering all senior research staff. The register is updated quarterly and is available to institutional subscribers on request via the Office of the Editor.

Vendors under audit are entitled to a factual accuracy review of the sections of any forthcoming publication that describe their product. Vendors are not entitled to comment on editorial conclusions, ranking decisions, or strategic analysis. Vendor access to a forthcoming publication is strictly limited to factual accuracy. All vendor exchanges are logged and disclosed in the methodology section of the published audit.

The firm does not accept consulting engagements, advisory fees, or any other commercial relationship from vendors whose products appear in active or pending Vanderhelm publications. The firm declines any vendor request for an advance copy of a publication beyond the factual accuracy review described above.

Vanderhelm publications are subject to a public corrections policy. Factual errors identified after publication are corrected on the publication itself, with a dated correction note appearing at the relevant section. Material errors, defined as those that change the conclusion of the audit, trigger a full retraction notice on the publication, in the firm’s quarterly Errata bulletin, and to any institutional subscriber who has accessed the publication.

Corrections are processed by the Office of the Editor and are subject to the same triple-blind review as the underlying publication. The firm publishes an annual transparency note documenting all corrections issued in the prior calendar year.

Customer panels participating in Vanderhelm audits are anonymised at the data collection stage. Individual subjects are not identified by name, employer, or any combination of attributes that would constitute reasonable identification. Aggregate findings drawn from these panels are reported at a level of granularity calibrated to preserve subject anonymity.

The firm does not sell, syndicate, or otherwise disclose individual panel data to third parties. Panel participants retain the right to withdraw their data from any forthcoming or existing publication at any time, subject only to a reasonable notice period required for republication of affected aggregate figures.

Vanderhelm researchers may use generative AI tools as part of the research process, principally for summarisation, hypothesis testing, and review of draft text. Generative AI is not used to author final publications. Every paragraph of every Vanderhelm publication is reviewed, edited, and approved by a named human author before release.

The firm’s standard for AI use is the same standard applied by any responsible research institution: AI assists the analyst; AI does not substitute for the analyst. Where AI tools have been used materially in the preparation of a specific publication, this is disclosed in the methodology section of that publication.

The standards above are administered by the Office of the Editor, which sits independently of the firm’s commercial operations and reports directly to the Vanderhelm Foundation board. The Office reviews all audits at the triple-blind stage, adjudicates corrections requests, maintains the conflict-of-interest register, and publishes the firm’s annual transparency note.

Concerns about the application of these standards may be raised in writing to the Office of the Editor at editor@vanderhelmresearch.org. All correspondence is logged and responded to within fifteen working days.