Area of investment and support

Area of investment and support: Artificial intelligence in the economy and society

ESRC supports three main areas of artificial intelligence (AI) research: how people interact with AI and are affected by it, how social science guides the development, adoption and diffusion of AI, and how AI is used for social science research.

Partners involved:
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

The scope and what we're doing

Areas we cover

We fund economic, behavioural, social and data science research that investigates how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used by and affects people, businesses, the economy and society.

ESRC funds social science research that will guide the development of Al and support business to use AI to help with tasks, make things easier, or bring in new ideas. We are also interested in how the social sciences can use AI in research and in understanding the impacts of AI on research and innovation.

Areas we cover include AI in:

  • AI and machine learning to enhance social science research
  • business adoption of AI
  • commercialisation of AI technologies
  • crime and justice
  • economics
  • education
  • growth and productivity
  • health and social care
  • international security
  • national security and defence
  • personal and social life
  • public services
  • work, businesses and people
  • world politics

Key current investments

Centre for Sociodigital Futures aims to create new approaches to fairer and more sustainable societies by exploring sociodigital futures-in-the-making. The centre carries out in-depth inquiry around digital technologies including AI.

Digital Good Network investigates what a good digital society should look like and how we get there. This social science-led programme looks at AI, among other digital technologies, to ensure it has positive outcomes for people and societies.

Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) studies the way in which digital technologies, including AI, are changing work and their impact on employers, workers and their representatives, job seekers and governments.

OECD AI studies, part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) programme on AI in Work, Innovation, Productivity and Skills, analyse the impact of AI on the labour market, skills and social policy.

The Productivity Institute explores how efficiently resources are used to produce goods and services and what this means for business, workers and communities. It aims to understand how productivity is measured and how it truly contributes to increased living standards and wellbeing.

It has a focus on how firms take up and use digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence, and what this means for productivity at both a firm level and at a national level.

InterAct Hub, a Made Smarter Innovation Network+, works on the uptake of digital technologies, including AI, by the manufacturing industry.

ESRC Education Research Programme works with researchers, teachers and policymakers to explore two themes:

  • teachers, their role, their recruitment, retention and professional development
  • the uses of technology for teaching and learning in UK schools

Projects with a focus on AI for education include:

Behavioural Research UK is working with a range of partners to use technology effectively and efficiently to accelerate behavioural insights. One of its priorities is to ensure that machine learning and AI systems in mobile apps for behaviour change are transparent and interpretable.

The success of AI depends upon the availability of high-quality data. Major ESRC data infrastructure investments enable AI research by providing trusted access to large collections of high-quality data. The investments include (among others):

Cross-UKRI initiatives

The joint ESRC and Innovate UK programme Next Generation Professional and Financial Services supports the professional service and financial service sectors to develop and use digital technologies. This includes:

Responsible AI UK aims to enable artificial intelligence that is responsible, safe, trustworthy and benefits people in everyday life. It includes two satellite projects:

  • Public voices in AI
  • Responsible and trustworthy AI: economic landscape analysis

Why we're doing it

The increasingly rapid advance of technology such as artificial intelligence is transforming the world in which we live. It provides huge benefits across the economy and society, from maximising the use of complex data to address global challenges and make ground-breaking discoveries, through to improving the efficiency of public services.

However, it also has the potential to cause damage and division, ranging from job loss to bias in decision-making, ‘fake news’ and threats to the foundations of the democratic process and national security.

Our role is to ensure that social science guides the development and adoption of AI in a way that identifies and amplifies its positive societal outcomes whilst exposing and mitigating potential harmful effects, to ensure responsible approaches to AI. This involves collaborating with a wide range of disciplines across the science base and combining fundamental research with public-facing and public policy-oriented work.

ESRC’s activities in AI are linked to:

Opportunities, support and resources available

ESRC responsive mode: research grants round two (see ‘Highlight notice: AI for social science’ in the ‘What we’re looking for’ section)

Past projects, outcomes and impact

Who to contact

Ask a question about this area of investment

Email: esrcenquiries@esrc.ukri.org

Telephone: 01793 416060

Last updated: 24 January 2025

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