Select Committee Area of Research Interest: Artificial Intelligence in Weapon Systems
Academics are invited to share their research and insights with the House of Lords Committee on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Weapon Systems.

An inquiry into the effectiveness and influence of the Select Committee system by the 2017–19 House of Commons Liaison Committee made several recommendations on how to improve the use of research evidence in select committees. One recommendation was for committees to develop and publish areas of research interest (ARIs). The House of Commons Scrutiny Unit, with the support of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST), is trialling select committee ARIs as a pilot exercise to better understand and assess how they can support parliamentary scrutiny.
Registration for this ARI has now closed.
The International Development Committee (IDC) is responsible for scrutiny of all UK aid and ODA expenditure, including aid spending by both the FCDO and other UK Government departments.
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Areas of Research Interest (ARIs) are lists of policy issues or questions. They are a way for an organisation to express interest in seeing more research evidence in certain topics.
If you have evidence or insights on the ARI (including evidence reviews): you can add information about the research and your contact details to the repository of existing and future research relevant to the ARI. If this area becomes a topic of scrutiny within Parliament, parliamentary staff may search the repository for relevant research and contacts.
If you are, or soon will be, carrying out research (including evidence reviews) in this topic area but findings are not yet available: you can add information about future research projects, likely publication dates, and contact details to the repository of existing and future research relevant to the ARI. If this area becomes a topic of scrutiny within Parliament, parliamentary staff may search the repository for relevant research projects and contacts. Once evidence is available, you can add that evidence to the repository at any time.
ARIs are not an exhaustive list of all areas in which Parliament may be interested in research evidence in the future. Parliamentary priorities are driven by elected representatives responding to current affairs. In particular, select committees issue calls for evidence based on their current priorities; ARIs do not replace these calls for evidence. However, ARIs may be used by parliamentarians and by parliamentary staff in POST, the Libraries and select committee teams to scope and/or inform future work.
In October 2020, POST published 20 COVID-19 Areas of Research Interest (ARIs) for the UK Parliament. ARIs were identified using the input of over 1,000 experts. They were then ranked in order of interest to UK Parliament research and select committee staff, following internal feedback. Each ARI comes with a series of questions aiming to further break down each broad area. The ARIs focus on the impacts of the global pandemic and range from economic recovery and growth, to surveillance and data collection, long-term mental health effects, education, vaccine development, and the NHS.
The Scrutiny Unit forms part of the Committee Office in the House of Commons and exists to strengthen the scrutiny function of the House.
Image: UK aid shelter kits are loaded for shipment, by UK Department for International Development under CC BY-ND 2.0
Academics are invited to share their research and insights with the House of Lords Committee on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Weapon Systems.
The House of Commons International Development Committee has updated its Area of Research Interest to support the Committee’s scrutiny of the UK’s international development strategy and funding. The ARI includes several specific areas of interest to further break down the broad area and focus the responses received from the research community
The House of Lords Adult Social Care Committee has published an Area of Research Interest on ‘Unpaid carers’ to support the Committee’s scrutiny of adult social care services in England. The ARI comes with several specific areas of interest aiming to further break down the broad area and focus the responses received from the research community.