By accessing, browsing, or otherwise using the Pizza Research Institute website (the "Site"), you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms of Use. If you do not agree to these terms, please close your browser and reflect on the choices that led you here.

These Terms constitute a legally binding agreement between you and the Pizza Research Institute ("PRI," "we," "us," or "our"), a wholly fictional institution created entirely for the purpose of settling a score with a specific marketing team — you know who you are.

Everything on this Site — and we mean everything — is made up. The Pizza Research Institute does not exist. It has never existed. There is no campus at 1 Margherita Plaza in New Haven, Connecticut. There is no Journal of Applied Pizzology. There are no graduate fellowships, no cheese melt laboratories, no crust deflection modeling programs, and no faculty members named Dr. Francesca Napolitano, Prof. Giuseppe Romano, Dr. Marcus Cheeseberg, Prof. Ario Saucington, Dr. Fillip Crustworthy, or any other thinly-veiled pizza pun.

This website was designed, built, and deployed as a good-natured act of retribution against the marketing team at Next Meters, who orchestrated an elaborate workplace prank of sufficient scale and audacity that it warranted a proportional creative response. The PRI is that response.

The research, the publications, the news articles, the faculty credentials, the institutional history dating to 1883, the quoted statistics, the named awards — all fictional. Any resemblance to actual pizza science institutions, living or deceased, is purely coincidental and also quite unlikely, as pizza science institutions are not really a thing.

All content on this Site, including but not limited to the institutional branding, fictional research papers, fabricated faculty biographies, invented laboratory names, and the general conceit of a prestigious academic institution dedicated to the rigorous study of pizza, is the intellectual property of its creators.

You may not reproduce, distribute, or commercially exploit any content from this Site without prior written permission — not because we are particularly litigious, but because if someone tried to pass off "The Pizza Research Institute" as real in a commercial context, that would be extremely funny and we'd want to be involved.

The information on this Site is not accurate. This is intentional. The Site does not purport to be a source of factual information about pizza, food science, academic institutions, nonprofit governance, or any other subject matter it appears to address with scholarly authority.

If you have made a real financial, academic, or career decision based on content found on this Site, we respectfully suggest that you call someone you trust. The "Donate Now" button does not go anywhere. The contact form does not submit to a real inbox. The phone number listed on the Contact page is also fictional.

That said, the underlying science of pizza is genuinely fascinating, and we encourage you to pursue it through accredited channels.

THE PIZZA RESEARCH INSTITUTE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS IMAGINED" BASIS. WE MAKE NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING THE EXISTENCE, ACCREDITATION, OR ACADEMIC STANDING OF THIS INSTITUTION.

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, PRI SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE SITE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO: emotional distress upon realizing this is not real; confusion during a conversation in which you cited the Journal of Applied Pizzology; or any pizza-related decisions made in reliance on our fabricated research findings.

The Next Meters marketing team assumes no liability either, though they arguably started this.

This Site may contain links to external websites. Those websites are real. We cannot vouch for the accuracy of their content, though their accuracy is probably better than ours, given that our entire content strategy is "make it up but make it sound credible."

We reserve the right to update these Terms at any time and without notice, particularly if the Next Meters marketing team escalates further, which at this point we would consider impressive and slightly concerning.

Continued use of the Site following any modification constitutes your acceptance of the revised Terms and your implicit acknowledgment that yes, this is a lot of effort to go to for a joke, but here we are.

These Terms shall be governed by the laws of the State of Connecticut, the state in which our fictional campus is fictionally located. Any disputes arising under these Terms shall be resolved in the courts of New Haven County — or, more likely, over pizza, which is how all disputes should be resolved.

If you have questions about these Terms, you may reach us at info@pizzaresearchinstitute.org, which is not a real email address. Alternatively, if you work at Next Meters and are reading this: we hope you know this was done with affection. The bit required an institution of this caliber. You'll understand.