Scholars have been awarded £3.4 million to assess the value of publicly available artificial intelligence tools for PhD research in the UK.
Research England has allocated the funding to a consortium led by Aston University and the University of Leeds, which said that very little attention had been paid to the use of AI by doctoral researchers, their supervisors and examiners, compared with the intense focus on undergraduates’ use of tools such as ChatGPT.
The project, the Artificial Intelligence Researcher Development Network Plus (AI.RDN+), plans to survey PhD students and associated staff to understand how AI tools are being used currently, the challenges that come with them, and how these are negotiated.
Academics plan to use this information to create a resource base with guidance on which AI tools are available, how they can be used, and examples of best practice.
The network will also create training and professional development resources, working with the eight Midlands Innovation research universities and the 12 members of Yorkshire Universities.
The project is led by Phil Mizen, professor of sociology and policy at Aston; Hosam Al-Samarraie, associate professor in digital innovation design; and Arunangsu Chatterjee, dean of digital transformation at Leeds.
Support comes from the UK Council for Graduate Education, research development organisation Vitae, and the National Centre for Universities and Business.
The project leaders said that doctoral researchers and supervisors often felt “ill-equipped” in relation to responsible and appropriate AI use, with “very little” guidance produced by research and higher education institutions.
“AI.RDN+ will provide detailed knowledge of the uptake and impact of publicly available AI tools across the doctoral ecosystem and use this to co-create much-needed information, resources and professional and skills training opportunities,” said Mizen.
“Our project is a unique opportunity to build knowledge and capture innovation, and to use this to build the resources needed for the ethical and responsible use of AI in doctoral research.”
