Governance
Â鶹ÒùÔº Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement
Generative AI tools have rapidly evolved and are increasingly integrated into academic life through research, writing and review processes. Their use must be approached with transparency, caution and a strong commitment to research ethics.
Â鶹ÒùÔº is aware of ethical concerns surrounding the governance of the development, deployment and regulation of AI systems and its applications, particularly covering issues related to research integrity, transparency, accountability, intellectual property, legitimate authorship, quality and integrity, and equity. In addition, Â鶹ÒùÔº has concerns about the environmental impact of the sustained use of AI tools.
While generative AI can assist with drafting, summarising, proofreading or refining academic content, it cannot be considered capable of producing an original piece of research or submission without substantial human intellectual contribution and oversight. In accordance with COPE guidelines, generative AI systems cannot be listed as authors, as they cannot assume accountability for errors, ensure ethical standards have been adhered to or respond to critiques of the work.
Â鶹ÒùÔº expects all researchers to uphold the highest standards of academic integrity and ethical conduct in their work. For work utilising AI, this includes, but is not limited to:
- Research integrity: Generative AI must not be used to fabricate, manipulate, modify or falsify research data or findings, including images and photographs. AI-generated content should not mislead readers about the provenance or originality of the work. Human oversight is always necessary. While authors may use AI tools in limited ways during manuscript preparation, they remain responsible for protecting sensitive material by ensuring appropriate confidentiality safeguards and anonymising data where necessary.
- Transparency: Any use of generative AI tools to support the creation of submissions to Â鶹ÒùÔº must be fully disclosed at the point of submission, including specifying the tool used and what it has been used for. Disclosures are required for the submission of abstracts, award and funding applications, governance applications, journal articles, Â鶹ÒùÔº Blog posts, and reports from those in receipt of Â鶹ÒùÔº funding, and other Â鶹ÒùÔº publications. Â鶹ÒùÔº reserves the right to publicly disclose these. We will ordinarily share the AI disclosure with the relevant judges, where appropriate, recognising that there is acceptable use of AI, providing it is declared, and disclosure and transparency is ethical best practice. Disclosure is intended to ensure confidence in the integrity of process, with it stressed to judges that individuals utilising AI in accordance with this policy should not be discriminated against, or treated unfavourably for declaring their use of AI. The focus of judging should be the quality, originality, rigour, and significance of the submission.
- Accountability: Named authors are fully responsible for verifying the accuracy, validity and originality of all content within their submission, including content produced or assisted by AI. They must take care to ensure that application of AI-based tools does not lead them to plagiarise, misrepresent or falsify content, or infringe third-party rights. Frequently, AI tools often generate incorrect or fabricated information and present it as accurate, known as ‘hallucinations’ (such as hallucinated references). AI tools reproduce biases and views of the data which have been used to train them.
- Intellectual property and confidentiality: Inputting unpublished, sensitive or proprietary material (such as manuscripts, peer reviews or confidential data), which you do not own, into AI tools that transmit data to third-party servers may constitute a breach of privacy and confidentiality. Therefore, no content which you are not the owner of should be entered into generative AI tools. Free-to-use AI tools often have no protections over how the intellectual property fed into them is being used and often permit the use of inputs in training, which may inadvertently or intentionally then show as an output without appropriate acknowledgement. Proprietary tools* may be appropriate for use provided controls to avoid this are in place.
- Peer review and judging: Peer review must be a human-led process. Generative AI must not be used to evaluate or make decisions on peer review or judging processes. Any content under review, including manuscripts and supplementary materials, must never be uploaded to free-to-use generative AI tools. Doing so may breach confidentiality, copyright, privacy, security and publisher agreements, particularly where AI systems retain or reuse submitted content for training purposes. Reviewers must not use free generative AI tools to summarise or evaluate review materials, or draft or edit review reports. Proprietary AI tools may be used in a limited and supplementary capacity to prepare review reports, such as for English-language support, translation or technical assistance, provided appropriate controls are in place. The reviewer retains full responsibility for the content and judgments expressed.
When claiming ownership of any work, the words, ideas and content are yours. The use of AI should never compromise the principles of academic integrity and researchers are responsible for their own actions and outputs.
Â鶹ÒùÔº will continue to monitor developments in AI technology and its implications for ethical research practices. Any undisclosed or inappropriate use of AI tools, particularly for the generation of content presented as original, may be considered a breach of the Â鶹ÒùÔº Code of Conduct, and Â鶹ÒùÔº reserves the right to take appropriate action. Should you have any queries about this policy, or around what may be permissible, please contact [email protected]
*Definition of proprietary tools
Institutions may offer enterprise or proprietary versions of common AI Technologies or private installations of AI models that run within their own environment. These versions ordinarily offer stronger protection than free-to-use technologies, such as:
- Explicit terms ensuring your content is not used for training
- Clearer data retention and deletion policies
- Content ownership guarantees
- Institutional compliance with funder, ethics, and data protection rules
- Enhanced administrative controls (e.g., disabling sharing outside the institution, single sign-on security)
It is the responsibility of the user to review the terms of use and follow any other applicable guidelines for AI use.
Third-party suppliers and vendors
Â鶹ÒùÔº encourages all third-party suppliers and vendors to use AI responsibly and only works with suppliers who adhere to all required data protection and GDPR laws and regulations.
We work with several companies with whom we may share your data for administrative purposes; a list can be found here. Where relevant, we can undertake enhanced due diligence processes, revisit contractual obligations and scrutinise suppliers to ensure they are providing adequate AI oversight and their AI use is aligned with this policy.
Â鶹ÒùÔº Council review this statement annually. Last updated: June 2026