Artificial Intelligence and Social Technologies in Research Conduct

“This timely volume addresses a pressing challenge: how to ethically integrate AI and digital communication technologies into research practice. Editor Loreta Tauginienė has brought together highly qualified contributors who move beyond abstract principles to provide concrete guidance for researchers, ethics committees, and institutions. For example, the chapters on informed consent, ethical risk assessment, and evolving REC responsibilities offer invaluable frameworks balancing innovation with integrity. As AI becomes ubiquitous across disciplines, this book serves as an essential resource for ensuring technological advancement aligns with the highest ethical standards in the research process.” –Z-Inspection® Initiative Lead, Kronberg, Germany

“Expert thinking about the future role computers can play in research has never been more important. Researchers like to position themselves at the forefront of grand innovations, transformation and debates. There can be no doubt that contemporary AI presents a robust challenge to this assumption. We humans have agency in deciding who leads future education, and on what terms leadership is delivered. We must embrace contemporary debates wholeheartedly in ways that are ethical, productive and effective. As this superb book conveys, AI provides an excellent stimulus for thinking through profound topics like governance, leadership and practice. It forces consideration beyond intellectual matters into the world of lived experience, practice and social relevance.” –Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, School of Education, Tsinghua University

“An authoritative guide to conducting scientific research responsibly in the age of artificial intelligence. In this book, the author cuts through hype and fear in order to focus on the things that truly matter: trust, accountability, integrity, and human judgment. Using rich case studies and theoretical interdisciplinary perspectives, the book shows that social technologies and artificial intelligence can contribute to ethical research, not undermine it. Both practical and forward-looking, this volume is important reading for researchers, research ethics committees, policymakers, and anyone shaping the future of credible knowledge production. If AI is changing how we do research, this book shows how we stay responsible while doing it.” –Associate Professor in Informatics, Department of Applied Information Technology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

“There has been no more widespread and profound change in the conduct of research than what AI has unleashed. As we grapple with how to conduct our work with rigor, integrity, and accountability, we need to search broadly and quickly for solutions. This new collection considers how AI in research is manifesting in ― and challenging ― law, policy, regulation, publication, technology, methodology, and more. Ranging from biomedical to citizen science; and from research oversight to student work, the essays offer some of our first glimpses of how researchers are confronting this powerful technology.” –, Professor of Philosophy and Graduate Program Director, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA

Loreta Tauginienė is an Associate Professor at Kaunas University of Technology (Lithuania), Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Academic Ethics, and member of the COPE Council. She has contributed to the field of academic ethics in various forms, ranging from research to practice, for more than ten years.