Written by Andrés García Higuera.
The European Parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) brought together Members of the European Parliament, the European Commission and researchers on 29 April 2025, to discuss the opportunities and challenges of the use of AI in science, at a workshop entitled ‘Generative AI and scientific development’.
STOA Vice‑Chair Lina Gálvez (S&D, Spain) opened the event, and called for a fruitful debate on all angles of the use of AI in scientific development – from the undeniable advantages, to the risks associated with an extensive deployment of AI and ways to counter them.
A first panel focused on the technologies involved in using AI to help foster scientific research in the EU. Serge Belongie (University of Copenhagen) set the scene with a keynote speech about the challenges and opportunities of AI. Maria Cristina Russo, Director of Prosperity at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, then commented on the Commission’s efforts to mobilise €200 billion for investment in AI, including €20 million to develop gigafactories devoted to high-performance cloud storage (HPC), as well as the political priorities of the Competitiveness Compass. She also commented on the AI continent action plan, the AI in science initiative, the communication on a European strategy for AI in science, and the creation of the resource for AI science in Europe (RAISE), as well as on the ‘Choose EU‘ initiative to attract researchers. Francesca Campolongo, Director for Digital Transformation and Data at the Joint Research Centre (JRC), highlighted that the EU is at the forefront of AI research and development, but that this does not translate well enough into innovation. She mentioned the GPT@JRC platform as an example of JRC’s commitment to help unlock the full potential of AI in science. Ana García Robles, of the Big Data Value Association, focused on competitiveness and emphasised the need to consider both small and medium-sized enterprises and big companies. Wijnand Ijsselsteijn (Eindhoven University of Technology) highlighted the relation between data science, AI and psychology.
The second panel focused on how AI affects scientific dialogue and gave an overview of the use and the abuse of AI in science. Oxford University Professor Sonia Contera’s keynote speech framed the way AI affects the exchange of information that is essential in science. Lex Bouter of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam insisted on the need to focus on the concept of research integrity. Anita De Waard, of Elsevier underlined the need for collaboration among academic and industry partners to improve trust and reproducibility, as well as research integrity. Commenting on these issues, Sebastián Ventura Soto from the University of Córdoba noted how new developments in AI can also be used to tackle them. Finally, Elizabeth Gadd of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment highlighted the need for responsible research evaluation and for improved metrics for evaluating research. During the Q&A session which followed, Ana Vasconcelos, (EPP, Portugal) discussed the idea of ‘fake’ scientific publications and the reliability of assessing AI manipulation while insisting on the need for trustworthy scientific communication.
STOA Vice-Chair Lina Gálvez closed the event, underlining the need to reap the full benefits of the development and uptake of AI in science, as promoted by the Commission and the JRC, while avoiding drawbacks such as interfering with a necessary and productive scientific dialogue. She ended by announcing that, since the Commission and JRC are already doing excellent work in promoting the deployment of AI with their different programmes, STOA will complement this effort by launching a study analysing the status of open science and the effects of generative AI in scientific exchange.
Prior to the event, the European Science-Media Hub (ESMH) published an article featuring interviews with the keynote speakers. A web-stream recording of the event, a video and photos, are available on our website.
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