AI-only review rejects half of grant proposals in UKRI-funded call, sparking alarm

birchlse · x · 2026-09-26

In a UKRI-funded cybersecurity call, an academic network used AI-only review to triage 179 proposals, rejecting half before any human read them.
The pipeline scored applications against seven criteria (relevance, quality, novelty, feasibility, value for money) with multiple models, plus a second pass with different models to guard against any single model's idiosyncrasies; only the top half went to human review.
John Stott, a senior lecturer in astrophysics at Lancaster University, said he had "seen the future and it's bleak" and would avoid funders assessing this way in the future.
Academics have expressed dismay; UKRI has been approached for comment.

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