Make your research project visible in no time
A webpage for your research project can help with participant recruitment and foster collaboration with fellow researchers or social partners. Creating such a page used to be a time-consuming task, but with the help of AI, the communications team can now build a clear project page much more quickly.
Have you recently been awarded a grant? Or have you started a collaboration with social partners to work on a shared research question? Then it is worth putting your project on the website so that it can be found by fellow researchers, policymakers, social partners, potential participants, and journalists.
The communications team at the Institute of Psychology has been publishing new research projects online for years. Previously, you as a researcher had to manually complete a form. This was quite a hurdle – especially as there is already so much to organise in the preparation phase of a study. As a result, many new projects at the institute were not yet visible online.
AI Co-Creation Lab
This is now changing. Over the past few months, Minja Šarović and Anne Holleman, together with Braam Hoffmann (research policy) and Ambra Brizi (researcher and SEO lecturer), have been developing an AI chatbot for the research project pages. They worked as a project team within the AI Co-Creation Lab – a university-wide initiative in collaboration with AI Advice & Training.
With support from AI experts both inside and outside the university, they have designed an AI agent that generates clear texts for a webpage based solely on a research proposal. This was quite a challenge, Šarović explains: ‘Especially combining all the different aspects into a single tool.’ Braam Hoffmann adds: ‘From an ethical perspective, we ensured that the AI chatbot does not add or change any essential information about the study. Maintaining integrity is always important – particularly in times of growing scepticism towards scientific research.’
This new tool significantly reduces the workload for researchers and the communications team and makes it possible to publish new research projects online quickly and efficiently.
One of the research projects published in this way is the Bright Horizons: Adjunctive Light Therapy for PTSD project. Researcher Laura Nawijn: 'It was very easy to use. I sent the project description from the grant application, and it was immediately used to create a website text. The text was actually perfect the first time around, and with a few minor adjustments, it was ready to be posted on the website.'
AI & privacy
The chatbot for generating texts for research project pages was developed within LUCA (Leiden University Cognitive Agent), the university’s secure platform. This environment is also used to design and manage educational chatbots, such as one that trains students to practise suicide prevention conversations. Data is processed on Microsoft Azure’s private cloud services, meaning all shared information is stored securely. Do you have questions about the chatbot’s privacy settings? Feel free to contact product owner Julian van der Kraats.
How to get your research project online
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Send your research proposal to webteam.psy@FSW.leidenuniv.nl, mentioning ‘Research Project Page’ in the subject line.
If you have additional documents or images you consider relevant, include those as well. -
The communications team will enter your texts into our AI chatbot in LUCA – the university’s secure AI environment.
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The chatbot generates a draft text for the webpage.
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The communications team revises the generated text where necessary and always checks it for readability and style.
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The revised text is sent back to you.
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You make any additional edits or changes so that the text fully meets your preferences and is ready for publication.
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With your approval, the communications team publishes the webpage online.
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With the help of AI – and in consultation with you – a translation into English or Dutch is also generated and published.