The AI and Government research cluster convenes researchers and professional staff from across the University of Edinburgh to develop policy-relevant, interdisciplinary work at the intersection of AI, public administration, governance, regulation, and social change. We connect expertise, build partnerships, and produce practical outputs that help translate evidence into action—within the University and with external partners.
What we do
- Connect people and expertise across Schools/Colleges around shared AI-and-government challenges.
- Build partnerships with government, local authorities, regulators, the third sector, and innovation intermediaries.
- Support funding and bid development by shaping interdisciplinary agendas aligned to strategic funder priorities.
- Convene events and working sessions through roundtables, seminars and bid-shaping workshops to turn shared interests into action.
- Produce actionable outputs such as short policy briefs and event summaries.
Themes
AI is changing how government works—through administration, service automation, digitalisation, and AI-supported decision processes—and it is also reshaping the governance and accountability mechanisms intended to oversee those changes. Because adoption is often moving faster than oversight can adapt, the cluster focuses on developing knowledge of implementation and operational practice, and on tracking how changes in process and changes in governance reshape each other.
Where AI is created, who owns it, and who controls tools, data, and compute shape what is governable and how. Questions of digital sovereignty, cyber security, supply chains, and legislative capability are increasingly central. The cluster treats stakeholder understanding and participation as a core object of analysis—publics, policymakers, firms, regulators, workers, and civil society encounter AI through different framings, and those framings influence what gets governed, by whom, and on what terms.
AI policy debates are often framed as unprecedented, but governments have navigated major technological transitions before—from electrification to the internet and social media. The cluster draws on established evidence about how technologies diffuse, displace, and reorganise social life, helping distinguish what is genuinely novel from what echoes earlier episodes. This strengthens the quality of policy advice, evaluation, and long-term governance thinking.
“The AIG cluster offers a conceptual and a practical solution, a policy-relevant, theoretically grounded approach for using, understanding and governing AI in real-world settings that allows us to build a future infrastructure for the world we would like see.”
Adam Farquhar, Dr. Clare Llewellyn-MacRae and Professor Neil Pollock, AI and Government Cluster Co-leads
Who we work with
University of Edinburgh
Researchers, PDRAs, PhD students, and professional services staff across the university looking to collaborate, find expertise, develop policy-facing work, or shape funding bids.
- Join the mailing list for monthly updates, events, and funding opportunities.
- Add/update your profile on the expertise map to make collaboration easier.
- Propose a theme-focused roundtable or briefing topic for the cluster to convene.
- Become a Champion to connect your School/unit to cluster activity and opportunities.
External partners
Government and public bodies, local authorities, regulators, third sector and civil society organisations, and industry and innovation intermediaries seeking collaboration, evidence, evaluation, or convening support.
Contact us to explore co-produced research, roundtables, evaluation, evidence summaries, or joint funding opportunities.
