Research that uses generative AI is expanding rapidly across fields, and is accelerating and transforming scientific knowledge. For three months University World News has published a weekly series of articles on ‘AI and Research’, exploring the multiplying ways in which AI is involved in higher education research, and culminating in this Special Report. The growing integration of AI tools is catalysing a new era of ‘human-AI collaboration’ in research, signalling a profound shift in how academics approach their scholarly work. This shift is not just about increasing productivity and scale – it represents a fundamental change in the research paradigm.
