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Under Review with Professor James Wilsdon - The death of the funding bid as we know it
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Episode Description
In this episode of the Under Review podcast I am joined by Professor James Wilsdon for a deep dive into a crisis brewing at the intersection of generative artificial intelligence and academic survival. We discuss the fine line between AI-driven efficiency and the exponential growth of research funding bids. We discuss whether we need to completely throw out traditional proposals in favour of tracking investigator merit, and look at the radical solutions needed to design a funding agency that can survive the machine age.
If AI continues to make inroads into the funding system then we are looking at an impending collapse of the traditional grant-funding system. While for researchers, they were promised that AI would alleviate the exhausting administrative burdens of academia, yet the reality is far more complicated. We are witnessing the rise of agentic AI systems capable of not just assisting, but destabilising the grant-writing process. This has triggered an unprecedented application tsunami, threatening to overwhelm funders and fundamentally alter how scientific excellence is measured and rewarded.
James has looked at the endemic problems blighting academia for longer than most. He leads the Research On Research Institute, which is the global engine room for metascience, turning the tools and methods of research back on the system itself to stop the waste of time, talent, and billions in funding.
James is a metascientist at the absolute heart of global research policy. He is a Professor of Research Policy at UCL in the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering & Public Policy. As the Executive Director of the Research on Research Institute, he leads a massive consortium of 55 partners from 23 countries, representing over 33 billion Dollars in annual research funding.
From directing science policy at The Royal Society to chairing the landmark Metric Tide review for the UK Government, he has spent decades questioning how we measure excellence and how we use evidence to make big decisions.
He recently hosted Metascience 2025, the largest gathering of its kind in history, proving that the movement to fix science is no longer a fringe interest, it’s a global priority. James is a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, a veteran of the Guardian’s Political Science blog. And more recently his work has focused on the impact of generative AI on the research funding system.
https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/93009-james-wilsdon
https://bsky.app/profile/jameswilsdon.bsky.social