The Ministry of Science and ICT (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon) announced that the ‘National R&D AI Research Ethics Guide’ has been finalized following deliberation and approval by the Operating Committee of the National Science and Technology Advisory Council. The core of the guide is to clarify that responsibility and rights for research and development outputs produced with artificial intelligence (AI) belong to the researcher, and to set out seven recommendations that researchers should observe.
 [코리안투데이] Cover of the Ministry of Science and ICT’s ‘National R&D AI Research Ethics Guide’ © 장형임 기자 |
As the advancement and spread of artificial intelligence accelerate, its influence is expanding beyond individual studies to the entire national R&D ecosystem. With AI being introduced across the whole research process, research productivity is rising dramatically, but new types of research ethics risks are emerging alongside it — the generation of inaccurate information, the perpetuation of bias inherited from existing data, security and personal-data leaks, and the improper citation of material of unclear origin. The Ministry of Science and ICT concluded that a national-level standard was needed to respond to these risks and accordingly prepared this guide.
The guide aims to support researchers in using AI responsibly and ethically at every stage of national R&D. Focused on support rather than regulation, it establishes the basic principle that ‘the role of AI is limited to that of a tool, and responsibility and rights for the final output belong to the researcher who used the AI.’ It also specifies that AI is confined to auxiliary functions such as summarizing literature, translation, grammar correction, basic coding, and organizing data, and that because AI cannot bear legal or moral obligations, it cannot hold the status of author or inventor.
Under this basic principle, the seven recommendations presented are: verifying facts, exercising independent judgment, ensuring transparency, managing the reliability of results, complying with policies and regulations, ensuring security, and protecting personal data. Researchers must verify errors and omissions of key material in AI-generated content, as well as the existence and authenticity of sources, and must review AI-generated material according to their expertise and reconstruct it from their own perspective. In addition, when AI is used in the research process, researchers must transparently disclose the model, version, purpose, and scope, and must be able to logically explain how their results were achieved even when AI was used. They must check and comply with the regulations of their R&D institution and the policies of individual journals, use only tools within an authorized security environment, and refrain from entering material containing personal data into AI services.
Standards for the evaluation process are also included. In the evaluation of national R&D projects and the review of papers, evaluators must conduct independent, expertise-based assessments without entering the material into external AI, while those being evaluated must not attempt to use AI to evade legitimate review criteria or to distort the evaluation through means such as hidden prompts. Such conduct constitutes research misconduct that undermines the credibility of evaluation and may be subject to sanctions under the relevant statutes.
To aid on-the-ground use, the guide also provides a ‘researcher self-assessment checklist’ that researchers can use to review their own work, as well as an ‘AI-use disclosure form’ that can be used when submitting project reports and similar documents. Hong Soon-jung, Director-General of the Performance Evaluation Policy Bureau, said, ‘AI is a useful tool that can innovatively enhance the efficiency of research, but the final responsibility for it always rests with the researcher,’ adding, ‘We hope this guide will serve as an opportunity to establish a culture of responsible AI use in the research field and to secure the research integrity of national R&D.’
The research field’s reliance on AI is already rising rapidly. According to a Wiley survey, the share of researchers who have used generative AI increased from 57 percent the previous year to 84 percent, and an Elsevier survey likewise found that researchers using AI in their work rose from 37 percent to 58 percent. This guide is significant in that, amid such trends, it organizes at the national level the standards for AI use that had been left solely to the judgment of individual researchers. Researchers now have clear guidance on how far they may use AI and what they must disclose, while citizens who encounter research outcomes now have a basis for judging the reliability of studies in which AI was involved.
The ‘National R&D AI Research Ethics Guide’ can be found on the Ministry of Science and ICT website (Policy·Statistics > Policy Information > Science and Technology Innovation) and on the website of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Evaluation and Planning. The Ministry plans to distribute the guide and its explanatory manual to each R&D institution and post them on its website, while continuing to gather field opinions and refine the guide.
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