- How ERC, NIH, UKRI and NHMRC draw the line
- AI-assisted vs AI-generated: common questions
- Practical reviewer-agreement language
- Implications and outlook
Four major funders have now published, or are actively revising, formal rules on AI in grant peer review, and the details differ enough that a reviewer moving between panels could unknowingly breach one funder’s terms while complying with another’s. In March 2026 the European Research Council (ERC) issued new guidelines on AI use in evaluation; the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) tightened its stance on AI-drafted applications from September 2025; UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) maintains a stricter blanket ban that peers expect to loosen; and Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) introduces a revised generative-AI policy from 28 April 2026. Research offices drafting or updating reviewer agreements need to track all four.
How ERC, NIH, UKRI and NHMRC draw the line
Each funder separates permitted “AI-assisted” support from prohibited “AI-generated” evaluation, but the exact boundary — and the effective date — varies.
| Funder | Rule effective | AI-assisted (permitted) | AI-generated (prohibited) |
|---|---|---|---|
| ERC | 24 March 2026 | Language polishing of a reviewer’s own report; general (non-proposal) information searches | Summarising proposals, assessing scientific merit, drafting evaluations, uploading any proposal content to external AI systems |
| NIH | Applications submitted from 25 September 2025 | Limited administrative tasks in application preparation | Reviewers using generative AI to analyse applications or formulate critiques; applications “substantially developed by AI” are treated as non-original and not reviewed |
| UKRI | Current policy; Research Funding Policy Group review pending | None yet formally sanctioned for reviewers — even AI-assisted grammar checks are currently disallowed | Any generative AI use by reviewers or panellists in assessing applications |
| NHMRC | 28 April 2026 | Generative AI to refine clarity or grammar of a reviewer’s own comments | Using AI to evaluate, critique or score applications |
A fifth data point is worth noting: the US-based Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) went further still in November 2025, prohibiting reviewers from using AI tools in any capacity during peer review — including refinement of their own comments — on confidentiality grounds. That makes FFAR the strictest outlier against which UKRI’s current position, and NHMRC’s narrower allowance, can be benchmarked.
- Confidentiality is the universal red line. Every policy reviewed prohibits uploading proposal text, applicant data or reviewer notes into public or third-party AI tools.
- Non-delegation is the second constant. Scientific merit assessment must remain a human judgement in all four jurisdictions, regardless of how permissive the language-polishing allowance is.
- UKRI is currently the most conservative of the four, with a sector-wide Research Funding Policy Group review expected to permit limited generative AI use in processing (not scoring) applications while keeping final decisions human-made.
AI-assisted vs AI-generated: common questions
Research offices repeatedly ask the same handful of questions when briefing reviewers. The answers below are grounded in the funder documents referenced above.
What is the difference between AI-assisted and AI-generated peer review?
AI-assisted review means a human reviewer uses a tool only for mechanical tasks — grammar, clarity, formatting of their own text — while retaining full intellectual authorship of the assessment. AI-generated review means the AI performs part of the evaluative task itself, such as summarising a proposal, scoring merit, or drafting critique content, which every funder surveyed here prohibits.
Has NIH banned AI in grant peer review?
Yes. NIH prohibits scientific peer reviewers from using generative AI tools to analyse applications or formulate critiques, a position it has held since June 2023. From 25 September 2025, NIH also treats applications substantially developed by AI as non-original, removing them from review rather than scoring them on merit.
Can UKRI reviewers use AI to check grammar in their assessments?
Not currently. UKRI’s existing policy forbids reviewers and panellists from using generative AI for any part of assessment, including language or grammar correction — a stricter line than ERC or NHMRC. A sector-wide funder policy group is expected to revisit this, but any change would still require human-made final decisions.
When does the NHMRC generative AI policy take effect?
NHMRC’s revised Policy on Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Grant Review takes effect from 28 April 2026. It permits peer reviewers to use generative AI to refine the clarity or grammar of their own comments, but explicitly prohibits using AI to evaluate, critique or score applications.
Practical reviewer-agreement language for research offices
Research offices administering panels — whether for an internal seed-fund competition, a co-funded international call, or as a delegated peer-review manager for an external funder — need reviewer agreements that anticipate divergence between funder rules. Three drafting principles reduce risk:
- Name the prohibited actions explicitly, not just the tool category. A clause banning “AI tools” is weaker than one banning “uploading proposal content, applicant identifiers, or draft scores to any AI system, whether or not the funder’s own policy names that system.”
- State the confidentiality obligation independently of the AI-use clause. General-purpose AI (GPAI) providers regulated under the EU AI Act’s GPAI obligations, in force since August 2025, may process submitted inputs for model improvement unless expressly excluded, so agreements should require reviewers to confirm no proposal content has been shared with any third-party system, GPAI-regulated or not.
- Require disclosure, not just prohibition. A short attestation line — “I have not used generative AI to draft, summarise or score any part of this review, and any AI assistance used was limited to language editing of my own original text” — gives research integrity offices an auditable record if a dispute arises.
Where a funder (such as NHMRC from April 2026) permits limited AI-assisted editing, research offices should still require reviewers to disclose which tool was used and confirm no proposal content was entered into it. This keeps institutional practice defensible even where funder rules differ from one call to the next.
Implications and outlook
For institutions running multi-funder portfolios, the practical challenge is less about any single funder’s rule and more about reviewer confusion across simultaneous panels. A reviewer serving both an ERC panel and a UKRI-funded call in the same month operates under materially different AI permissions for the same underlying task. Research offices should treat funder AI policies as living documents — ERC’s and NHMRC’s 2026 updates both followed roughly a year or more after their organisations’ initial public positions on AI, suggesting further revision is likely as reviewer behaviour and AI capability both evolve.
The direction of travel across all four funders is convergence on two non-negotiables — confidentiality of proposal content and non-delegation of scientific judgement — even as the permitted margin for administrative AI assistance slowly widens. Research offices that build reviewer agreements around those two constants, rather than around any single funder’s current wording, will need fewer rewrites as UKRI’s pending policy shift and any subsequent NIH or ERC revisions land through 2026 and beyond.
For related terminology used across funder and publisher AI-governance documents, see the CASRAI research dictionary, and for broader institutional process guidance visit the research administration resource hub.