AI Research and Innovation

What we will be doing

July was mostly listening. September is about turning some of that into work people can actually get on with.

Looking back over everything raised in July, the questions and concerns grouped fairly naturally into a handful of themes. These are starting points, not fixed agendas, and there is plenty of room to reshape them on the day:

• Research practice, evidence, ethics and integrity: when you use AI in a study, what does the ethics statement say, and how do we keep the evidence sound?
• Researcher guidance and policy: the guidance exists, but hardly anyone knows where to find it
• AI skills and training: what works for Computer Science will not work for History
• Tools and infrastructure: subscriptions, API access, and how any of it gets paid for
• Collaboration and innovation: working with each other, and with people outside Warwick
• Funding for new ideas: getting ahead of calls instead of scrambling when they open

We will spend part of the morning forming discussions around each one. Each group picks something to focus on first, someone to convene it, and a date to come back and report. We are thinking a few meetings over the coming months rather than an open-ended commitment.

We will also talk about what Warwick's AI research should be known for. And there is one question we would like you to come ready to answer: if Warwick could put a small amount of seed funding into AI-related research activity, what would be a useful amount, what would you spend it on, and roughly what would that cost?

What has happened since July

Three things, briefly.

We have completed a first map of AI-related research projects across the University, by department and discipline, so we now have a much better picture of who is working on what. We have finished an initial review of where AI work is being funded and matched it against the research Warwick can already evidence. And we have put a case to senior decision makers for a proper route to AI tools, subscriptions and API access, which came up on nearly every table in July.

We will go through all of it properly on the day, including what the mapping did not tell us.

A note on disagreement

One of the more interesting things about July was that the room did not agree, and we would like to keep it that way in September.

Some colleagues are already using these tools daily and think the equity argument runs in favour of wider access. Others have real reservations about what it does to evidence, to expertise, and to the way people learn to do research in the first place. Both views came up strongly, and they tend to come from genuine differences in how research works across disciplines.

So please do come if you are sceptical. It is a more useful morning if the enthusiasm and the doubts are both in the room.

The morning

• 9.30Coffee and arrival
• 10.00Welcome
• 10.15Where things are now
• 10.50Working groups
• 11.30Break
• 11.50What should Warwick be known for?
• 12.50Wrapping up
• 1.00Lunch

Who should come

Anyone who came in July, and anyone who did not but is interested. We would love a mix. People already using AI in their research, people who have reservations about it, and colleagues from research support, the Library, IT and research ethics.

You do not need to know anything about AI to be useful in the room.

If you would be willing to convene one of the working groups, do let us know when you register.

Register your place