The Manchester Institute of Innovation Research held a week-long Early-Career Winter School on AI for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy (#AI4STIP) with over thirty doctoral and post-doctoral participants from ten countries.
With support from Eu-SPRI (the European Forum for Studies of Policies for Research and Innovation and other sponsors, the Winter School was hosted at the University of Manchester’s Alliance Manchester Business School, November 13-17, 2023. The week-long #AI4STIP program covered a broad spectrum of topics. Winter School participants explored the implications of rapidly emerging AI technologies for science, technology, and innovation management and policy. Assessments of the rise of AI technologies in science, industry and society were combined with hands-on training to improve technical understanding of AI methods that could be applied to science, technology, and innovation policy topics (including participants’ projects and research themes) while also considering ethical and responsible research and innovation aspects.
Training at the Winter School focused on generative AI and large language models (LLMs), to explore their workings, creation processes, uses, and limitations. Multiple LLM-based tools now available for academic research were discussed, including Scite.ai, Perplexity, Elicit, Humata, and Casper. Lab sessions offered hands-on experiences, including using OpenAI’s GPT, other open source LLMs, and API coding interfaces, and developing integrated approaches to combine tools for policy analysis. A group project ran throughout the week, leading to final-day team presentations where scientific papers on research policies and UN technology and innovation reports were used as sources for LLM-enabled analyses.
The curriculum also included talks and fireside panels on AI’s prospects for science and society, and humanizing AI, featuring Laurie Smith (Nesta), Alistair Nolan (OECD), Parsa Ghaffari (Quantexa News Intelligence), Elle Farrell-Kingsley (AI Tech Journalist) and Samuel Kaski (University of Manchester, Alan Turing Institute, and the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence).
The conclusion of the winter school was dedicated to reflecting on group projects and engaging in group discussions to enhance collective learning.
The international #AI4STIP core faculty group that delivered the school comprised Philip Shapira (University of Manchester and Georgia Tech), Barbara Ribeiro (SKEMA Business School, France), Arash Hajikhani (VTT Finland), Justin Biddle (Georgia Tech), Cornelia Lawson (University of Manchester), and Carolyn Cole (VTT Finland).
The AI for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy Winter School was supported by the European Forum for Studies of Policies for Research and Innovation (Eu-SPRI Forum), the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, and the Alliance Manchester Business School. Additional support for student and faculty travel was provided by the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy and the Ivan Allen College, the Partnership for the Organization of Innovation and New Technologies (Polytechnique Montréal, Canada), and VTT Finland.
Philip Shapira 