EU research guidance draws a line: AI can assist review, not make the judgement

Peer review gets the clearest boundary

The document says scientific-quality and merit judgements must not be delegated to AI. Reviewers, editors and funding evaluators may use permitted support functions, but they remain responsible for assessments and recommendations. Unpublished manuscripts, proposals, review reports and ideas should not be pasted into unsecured public AI systems; where AI is allowed, the guidance prefers secure tools with clear governance and data management.

Funding organisations are told to watch for biased or erroneous screening, ranking, prioritisation and exclusion. Institutions are encouraged to provide training, track AI use, monitor environmental impact and, where feasible, offer locally hosted or governed systems for sensitive data. Researchers are reminded that uploading personal data requires a lawful basis and that an agent acting on their behalf does not remove legal obligations.

This does not mean every cloud tool is prohibited. The guidance asks users to examine who owns and operates the system, where it runs, what happens to prompts and uploaded material, and whether data can be reused for training. That makes procurement and information governance part of research integrity, rather than leaving each researcher to infer privacy from a consumer settings page.[1][2]

It is a common reference, not an enforcement regime

For a doctoral researcher, supervisor or reviewer, the practical test is clearer: could another person understand where AI materially influenced the work, and did a human retain control over confidential information and consequential judgement? Institutions can turn that into disclosure fields, approved-tool lists and review checkpoints without banning every low-risk use in practice.

The authority check matters. This European Research Area stakeholders' document is explicitly non-binding. It translates existing integrity and trustworthy-AI principles; it creates no new penalty and does not override the AI Act, data-protection law, funder terms, journal policies or national rules. Disciplines may adapt the recommendations proportionately. What would change the assessment is implementation evidence: comparable disclosure, fewer confidentiality breaches, reproducible AI-assisted methods and audits showing that automated screening does not skew funding. Until then, the update supplies a stronger governance baseline, not proof that European research has solved the problem.[1][2]