The field of Artificial Intelligence is made of six Division level Fields of Research. We explore if these FoRs have evolved together or separately and discuss the consequences of both.

For decades, the proportion of women publishing their first academic publication has increased. However, following the COVID-19 pandemic, this growth has gone in reverse for two consecutive years, with 2024 not looking better.

There is a large global divide in AI research and development, with the vast majority of research publications and funding coming from the US, China, and EU27.

AI research has become fragmented across disciplines, geography, and policy. Specialised subfields rarely collaborate, limiting spread of innovations from one area to others. Concentration in high-income countries also excludes global perspectives while policies created in AI hubs may not transfer. Government regulations remain disjointed as well. In 2022 most countries lacked AI strategies, with existing policies conflicting across jurisdictions, ranging from promoting competitiveness to ethics. Overall this disciplinary, geographic, and policy division hampers coordination across all of AI.

Research has the power to change lives, break down barriers and create unity & equity. When the research community solves problems together extraordinary breakthroughs can happen. But post-pandemic, fragmentation in the research ecosystem remains one of the biggest challenges to the ability of researchers to make a real-world difference. We want to challenge the status quo, highlight the issues, and share positive ways to create better synergy and collaboration, helping to unite a divided research world.

With trust in research a critical issue, our team takes a detailed look at a key 'trust marker' in research publications on vaccine hesitancy.

Welcome to Digital Science TL;DR, our new avenue for interesting things! We bring you short, sharp insights into what’s going on across the Digital Science group; both through our in-house experts and in conversation with amazing people from the community. And we’ll keep it brief!