Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Research Process of Scholars and Students: Tool or/and Co-Contributor?

Webinar, 20 November 2025 | 14:00 – 16:00 UTC/GMT

Zoom access via login from ISA member account: https://members.isa-sociology.org/login

This webinar focuses on generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in the research process. Although to an extent AI in general has already been applied to various purposes in the research process (e.g. automated machine learning for text analysis), the rapidly accelerating advancement and accessibility of GenAI in recent years have produced novel benefits and challenges. It has the potential to reshape teaching, learning and the conduct of research in the future. The webinar examines both the use of GenAI in the process of learning about the research process (i.e. how students use it) and doing social research (i.e. how researchers use it).

Another important question is whether and to what extent GenAI not only reveals itself as a research tool, but also how the technology has an imminent constitutive effect on the research process and the researchers themselves. The webinar explores where the boundary lies between the application of GenAI as an efficient tool in different steps of the research process and GenAI becoming a “substantial” contributor alongside (or in place of?) a researcher.

The webinar does not aspire to produce any conclusive statements. It aims to facilitate a critical discussion among invited speakers and to prompt the audience to reflect upon the uses of GenAI in their research process practice.

The webinar is collaboratively organised by Inga Gaižauskaitė (RC33 Logic and Methodology in Sociology), Michael Grothe-Hammer (RC17 Sociology of Organizations), Lutfun Nahar Lata (RC21 Urban and Regional Development), Dirk Michel-Schertges (RC36 Alienation Theory and Research), and Markus S. Schulz (RC07 Futures Research).