[EU] Horizon Insights – Artificial intelligence (AI) in research

Responsible use of GenAI

Recognizing the pivotal role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in research and innovation and its imperative integration into scientific realms, the European Commission (EC) underscores the significance of Generative (GenAI) tools, such as ChatGPT and CoPilot, in predicting future trends, fostering innovation, and accelerating scientific discoveries and breakthroughs. Furthermore, these tools find utility in scientific writing, encompassing publications and research projects. In response to the challenges encountered by researchers, research organizations, and funding bodies when employing GenAI, the EC has recently issued guidelines emphasizing the responsible use of such tools in research.

These guidelines aim to strike a balance between human ingenuity and AI, advocating for transparency, research integrity, privacy, confidentiality and intellectual property rights, concerning both input and output data. Additionally, they caution against the uncritical deployment of GenAI tools in peer reviews and evaluations.

How to use GenAI in proposal writing?

The discourse surrounding the incorporation of AI into proposal development and evaluation is multifaceted, encompassing challenges, opportunities, ethical considerations, and risks. GenAI tools offer invaluable assistance in time management and efficiency, particularly when faced with tight deadlines, helping in rewriting, content refining and restructuring. For example, it can significantly enhance your writing style by making the content more consistent, reformulating SMART objectives, highlighting key messages, and restructuring the methodology and other sections. These improvements make your proposal more attractive to the reviewers and increase your chances of success.

Guiding principles

Being aware that the use of GenAI is in the rise, the EC has recently introduced guidance in the application template of Horizon Europe proposals. When using an AI tool, the applicant is required to verify the accuracy and appropriateness of the content and any citations generated by the AI tool. A list of sources used to generate content should be provided. Special attention is given to plagiarism and the limitations of GenAI in proposal preparation. There is an exception for ERC proposals: the ERC Scientific Council asks applicants to take full and sole authorship responsibilities, as stated in their recent position on AI.

Although the use of GenAI tools can be very efficient in research proposal development, certain fundamental principles must however guide their utilization:

Upholding research integrity as the cornerstone for determining the if and the how of GenAI usage
Preserving a human-centered approach and nurturing creativity to mitigate the risk of plagiarism
Recognizing that information shared with AI is essentially shared with the world, including potential competitors, thus exercising caution in divulging groundbreaking ideas
Consulting with relevant entities to assess the sensitivity of information concerning intellectual property, personal data and privacy-sensitive information (GDPR), when employing AI tools

In essence, the integration of AI into research and proposal writing endeavors necessitates a balanced approach guided by ethical considerations and a commitment to advancing knowledge responsibly.

This article benefited from the assistance of ChatGPT.

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About Horizon Insights

Horizon Insights is a feature in the BOZI newsletter where the EU team wishes to share own insights, going beyond information.

27 juni 2024 11:44