- July 2026: Our workshop has been accepted at NeurIPS 2026 (Paris)! Read the call for papers.
- July 2026: Submissions are open on the workshop’s OpenReview page.
- Coming soon: further invited speaker announcements.
About the Workshop
AI is rapidly transforming how scientific work is produced. Beyond accelerating computational workflows, AI systems increasingly support or automate major parts of research: hypothesis generation, experiment planning, analysis, writing, and even elements of wet-lab automation. As AI scientists and AI-augmented pipelines reduce the marginal cost of producing scientific artifacts, the scientific ecosystem faces a new bottleneck: evaluation, verification, and governance.
While the production side of science has scaled dramatically, quality control (peer review, reproducibility norms, publication criteria, incentive structures, and funding allocation) is lagging behind. Record submission numbers at major AI conferences and a growing reviewer crisis make this gap visible year after year. This workshop treats the scientific enterprise itself as an object of study and intervention, and aims to establish AI for meta-science as a distinct research area at the intersection of machine learning, science policy, and the study of science. Questions we will tackle include:
- Scaling evaluation alongside production: how can peer review, reproducibility checking, and research evaluation keep up when AI scientists can produce papers at scale, and what roles should AI reviewers and verification tools play?
- Quality control and integrity: how do we detect and handle AI-generated content, manipulation, and "AI slop" in scholarly communication, while responsibly incorporating AI assistance into authoring and reviewing?
- Reorganizing the scientific enterprise: what counts as a publication now? How should credit, careers, incentives, funding, and governance adapt to AI-accelerated science, in academia and industry alike?
Who should attend
We bring together researchers from meta-science, philosophy of science, AI, peer review, and evaluation science with conference organizers, journal editors, and arXiv moderators. If you build AI systems for the scientific process, study the process itself, or run parts of it, this workshop is for you.
Format and outcomes
The program combines invited talks, contributed talks, a poster session, a panel discussion, and unconference-style breakout sessions where attendees propose their own topics for collaborative research sprints and community building. The workshop aims to produce a position paper with a set of recommendations based on participant input, to establish guidelines for ML communities on dealing with the peer-review crisis and AI in the scientific process, and to launch a lasting working group on AI for meta-science. To join the community behind the position paper effort, please contact us.
Invited Speakers & Panelists
Autumn Toney-Wails
UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University
NLP, meta-science, responsible AI (panel moderator)
More speakers and panelists to be announced. See the speakers page for bios and talk titles.
Important Dates (Anywhere on Earth)
| Submissions open | July 27, 2026 | |
| Paper submission deadline | August 29, 2026 | |
| Accept/reject notification | September 29, 2026 | |
| Camera-ready deadline | November 2026 (exact date TBA) | |
| Workshop | December 2026 (exact day TBA) at NeurIPS 2026, Paris |
Submissions
Submissions are made through the workshop’s OpenReview page.
Papers should use the NeurIPS 2026 LaTeX template, with the footnote changed to “Submitted to AI for Meta-Science workshop (NeurIPS 2026)”. The NeurIPS paper checklist is not needed. Submissions are either 4 pages (concise technical contributions) or 8 pages (more substantial contributions, for example position papers), excluding references, with unlimited appendix. We welcome papers in two tracks: a technical track and a position paper track; previously published relevant work is also welcome for presentation. More information in the call for papers.
Call for Reviewers
We are recruiting reviewers for both tracks. Each reviewer will receive at most 3 papers, and reviewing takes place on OpenReview during September 2026. For the position track, we especially welcome reviewers from philosophy, science studies, policy, and publishing; prior ML reviewing experience is not required. If you would like to help, please fill in the reviewer sign-up form.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Can I attend the workshop even if I don’t have a submission?
- Yes, you are welcome to attend. Registration goes through the NeurIPS 2026 registration system, with the workshops option selected.
- Can I join the organizing team?
- We always welcome new members. In fact, we are aiming to write a position paper together with the community that forms at this workshop, so please contact us if you would like to get involved.
Contact & Community
For any questions, or to join our community, reach us at ai4metascience@googlegroups.com.
