Sheffield researchers secure £235,000 UKRI grant to track AI’s impact on research incentives

The Paying it Forward project will develop metrics and software tools to examine whether UK research rewards the creation and stewardship of datasets and open-source software

The Paying it Forward project will examine how UK research incentives recognize the creation and stewardship of software and datasets

Researchers from the University of Sheffield’s Research Software Engineering team have received funding for a UK project examining how academic incentives account for the datasets and software underpinning AI-assisted research.

The £235,000 UK Research and Innovation Metascience grant will support Paying it Forward, led by Principal Investigator Dr Michael Foster and Co-Investigator Dr Edwin Brown. The University of Sheffield will receive £135,000 of the total award.

Foster and Brown are working with co-investigators Matt Spick from the University of Surrey, Daren Howell from Crew Create Ltd and George Regkoukos from University College London.

The project starts from a specific concern: AI can accelerate parts of data analysis and research production, while the slower work of creating primary datasets and open-source software may receive less recognition under incentives that favor rapid output and secondary analysis.

Paying it Forward will develop metascience metrics intended to show how research communities create, reuse and extend digital resources. The team will also build scalable software tools to track research outputs across different fields in the UK.

Measuring the work behind research outputs

The project will examine whether newly created software and data meet FAIR digital stewardship principles covering findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability.

Its planned tools are intended to quantify the balance between primary resource creation, reuse and extension, assess standards of digital stewardship, and provide field-weighted tracking across the UK research landscape.

The stated aim is to give funders and policymakers evidence that could inform how foundational software and data generation are recognized and rewarded. No resulting metrics, evidence of impact or proposed changes to funding policy have yet been published.

Sheffield’s Research Software Engineering team works with research groups across disciplines including engineering, mathematics, computer science, biology, linguistics, physics, chemistry and geography. Its services cover software development, code optimization, reproducibility, statistical analysis, data visualization, high-performance computing, training and education support.

The team provides paid support through grant funding and university departmental accounts, alongside limited free assistance through community activities, training and its Code Clinic consultation service with IT Services Research and Innovation IT.