The UK Committee on Research Integrity is pleased to share a commissioned analysis of UK institutional policy and guidance on GenAI in research. As the pace of technological development accelerates, so does the need for clear, coherent and trusted guidance to support researchers, institutions, and the wider sector. The committee’s interest was driven by the rapid advancements in LLM but the findings apply more generally to AI. This report makes a valuable contribution by providing an analysis of a sample of the policy and guidance that is currently available across UK universities and organisations. While there is a growing body of advice and good practice emerging across the research and innovation sector, the overall landscape is fragmented. Bringing cohesion to the fragmented landscape can provide an opportunity to enable high integrity adoption of GenAI in research and trust in its outputs.

In November, the working group hosted a strategic workshop with key stakeholders in the sector to identify opportunities and engagement strategies in taking forward the findings of the report and how they might inform future recommendations. The report findings, supported by discussion at the roundtable, identified that there is dissonance between the rate at which technology moves and the speed at which policy and guidance are developed, and agreed.

The aim of policies varied between avoiding risk and promoting responsible and ethical use of AI. Similarly, policies varied in their emphasis, some focusing on education and assessment and others on research. Few institutions had policies that covered everything.

For the UK Committee on Research Integrity, this analysis will contribute to the evidence base informing our emerging conclusions on AI and research integrity. We will consider this report alongside insights from our wider evidence gathering and our engagement across the sector.

We are grateful to Dr Lesley Uttley and all those who contributed to this work and who provided initial feedback. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with partners across the system. We will be publishing a report which brings together this and other evidence for discussion with the sector.

The full report is available at the following link: Review and Analysis of UK Institutional Guidance for Artificial Intelligence Use in Research (pdf)

The executive summary can be accessed here: Executive Summary – Review and Analysis of UK Institutional Guidance for Artificial Intelligence Use in Research (pdf)