17 Nations Endorse Kyoto Vision to Integrate AI into Scientific Research
On October 4, 17 countries, including the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany, endorsed the "Kyoto Vision for a Golden Age of Science" at the 23rd Annual Science and Technology in Society Forum in Kyoto. The initiative, driven by White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratios, focuses on reforming research institutions, applying AI in science, and cultivating talent.
The declaration encourages integrating AI into scientific workflows, such as analyzing existing knowledge, building more accurate models of physical and biological systems, and enabling autonomous, closed-loop scientific discovery. In closed-loop research, experimental results are fed back into the system to adjust the next round of experiment design. Participating countries said they would work to expand researchers' access to AI tools, scientific data, computing infrastructure and experimental facilities.
On research funding, the Vision calls for combining long-term grants, rapid funding, prizes and challenges for different research goals, and exploring new institutional models that grant researchers varying levels of autonomy, resources and guidance, while reducing unnecessary administrative burdens. The countries also support developing "meta-science" to empirically evaluate which organizational and funding mechanisms work best.
The declaration also emphasizes research quality, requiring reproducibility, transparency, clear disclosure of errors and uncertainties, fair peer review, and treating null results as valuable scientific contributions. For talent development, it proposes early support for promising students and early-career researchers, more hands-on opportunities to operate complex instruments, and cross-disciplinary joint PhD programs and collaborative research.
Besides the U.S., the supporting countries are Argentina, Bulgaria, Chile, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. South Korea's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT, Bae Kyung-hoon, joined the declaration's release.
