Funding statement
The Dietary Assessment Initiative is supported by general operating funds, small individual contributions, and pro-bono researcher time. We do not have a single primary donor.
What we accept
- Unrestricted general operating support that places no expectation on what we publish or which instruments we evaluate.
- Methodological consulting fees for non-commercial parties (academic groups, public health agencies) where the work is disclosed in the publications it informs.
- Travel and conference reimbursement under standard academic terms.
What we do not accept
- Funding, in-kind support, equipment, or paid research access from any commercial dietary assessment product, or from any entity with a material financial interest in the products we evaluate.
- Funding tied to a publication outcome, a publication timeline, or a specific product's inclusion in or exclusion from a study.
- Funding contingent on pre-publication review by the funding party.
Per-publication funding sources, where any external support exists, are disclosed in the funding statement of the individual publication. The default disclosure on each publication, in the absence of external support, reads: "No external funding was received for this work."
Disclosure
Initiative researchers disclose any individual financial relationships (consulting, speaking honoraria, advisory roles) on their individual profile pages and in the competing-interests statement of any publication for which the relationship is potentially relevant. Routine academic activity (peer review, editorial board membership for non-commercial journals, invited talks at non-commercial venues) is not separately disclosed.
Independence
Independence on validation work is not a posture; it is a structural feature. We publish weighed-food protocols and code so that other groups can replicate. We label every reported accuracy number as either vendor-reported or independently-replicated. We do not enter commercial NDAs that would constrain what we can publish. And where we replicate a vendor-reported number and find that it does not reproduce, we publish the discrepancy with the same prominence as a confirmation.