Artificial Intelligence for Policy Makers (online)



Overview

The adoption of AI is having a growing impact on governance, policymaking, and global industries. However, many organisations and governments around the world are struggling to adopt AI effectively, understand its implications on their sectors, and balance the opportunities it presents with the risks it introduces.

Regulation remains a particularly challenging area, with many nations grappling with how to avoid overregulation that hinders innovation while ensuring responsible AI use that protects citizens and economies. 

This course addresses these global challenges by: 

  • Equipping policymakers with the skills to navigate the delicate balance between driving growth and innovation while maintaining robust and adaptive regulatory frameworks.   
  • Encouraging long-term capability building strategies for policy making rather than short-term, one-off interventions. 
  • Emphasising cross-sector collaboration for policy making, drawing on expertise from academia, industry, and international best practices.

Programme details

The following topics will be covered over the course of six online sessions. 

1. Foundations of AI for Policymakers

  • How AI models work: capabilities and limitations 
  • Scenarios for the use of AI in Policy making: success metrics, risk metrics and human-in-the-loop metrics 
  • Evaluating AI-generated outputs for policy use and their policy impact 
  • Keeping up with the rapidly evolving AI landscape through horizon scanning 

2. AI for Better Policy Decisions

  • Evidence-based governance to improve public decision-making 
  • Scaling AI from pilots to meaningful impact in Government 
  • Using AI tools for analysis and visualisation 

3. Writing, Implementing, and Evaluating AI-Driven Policies

  • Using AI as an assistant to understand the drafting of policies 
  • Operationalising AI-driven policies effectively 
  • Monitoring and measuring outcomes using AI-driven performance metrics 

4. Responsible AI and Building Public Trust

  • Ethical considerations and aligning AI with laws and values 
  • Addressing algorithmic bias in AI 
  • Communicating AI usage to citizens to foster trust and understanding 

5. Security AI and Risk Management

  • Strengthening cybersecurity with AI tools for Policy makers 
  • Planning for and managing crises related to AI failures or misuse 

6. Governance, Regulation, and Policy Frameworks

  • UK, EU and USA regulations: understanding compliance requirements for AI systems 
  • Designing governance structures for AI oversight and accountability 
  • Learning from global successes (such as NHS AI initiatives) and failures  

7. Leadership and Industry Collaboration 

  • Building AI talent in public sector teams 
  • Partnering with academia, industry and think tanks 
  • Driving innovation in key industries to support economic growth 

8. AI as a catalyst for fundamental research

AI has a role in acting as a catalyst for fundamental science. This module covers policy and regulatory aspects, such as: 

  • Accelerated hypothesis generation 
  • Accelerating science through complex datasets, such as genomics and participle physics 
  • Development of new medicines. 

9. Policy impact of AGI

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), broadly defined as AI with human-level or greater capability across the full range of cognitive tasks, remains speculative but carries transformative potential. While current AI systems are specialised and narrow, AGI would be able to reason and learn in a generalisable way, comparable to human ability in many areas.
This prospect raises a distinct set of opportunities and risks which need to be considered by policy makers.

Below are key issues policymakers should keep in mind regarding AGI that will be examined:  

  • AGI timelines and policy implications 
  • Alignment of AGI to values 
  • Safety considerations and oversight 
  • AGI oversight 
  • Shared standards and best practices 
  • Economic and societal impact of AGI including disruption to labour, concentration of power, safety nets and reskilling 
  • Addressing large-scale problems: the role of AGI in positive transformations and in solving major global problems, such as disease, climate change and resource scarcity 
  • Competitive positioning of nations using AGI 

10. Capstone project 

The project is to design policies for AGI considering opportunities, risks, alignment and oversight. You will have one week after the end of the taught sessions to complete this project as part of a group, which serves as an opportunity to use the knowledge learned in the course. Each group will be expected to commit approximately 10 hours of work to the project outside of the live sessions.

Who is this course for?

The content covered would be ideal for UK, EU, US regulators and global AI strategy stakeholders, and has been primarily designed for:

  • Government policymakers and civil servants 

  • Parliamentary advisors and legislative analysts 

  • Public sector leaders and executives 

  • International development professionals 

This course would also be beneficial to:

  • Think tank and policy researchers 

  • Academics in policy or tech governance 

  • Industry public affairs professionals 

  • NGO leaders focused on digital rights and ethics

Dates, Times and Delivery

The Artificial Intelligence for Policy Makers (online) course will run over six sessions across two weeks, from 24 November - 5 December.

Sessions will be delivered online via Microsoft Teams, from 2:00pm – 6:00pm (UK time).

Session days:

  • Monday 24 November
  • Wednesday 26 November
  • Friday 28 November
  • Monday 1 December
  • Wednesday 3 December
  • Friday 5 December

A world clock, and time zone converter can be found here: https://bit.ly/3bSPu6D

This is a ‘virtual classroom’ course, with live sessions that should be attended in real-time. 

No attendance at Oxford is required and you do not need to purchase any software.

Certification

Participants who satisfy the course requirements will receive a University of Oxford digital certificate of completion. To receive a certificate at the end of the course you will need to:

  1. Achieve a minimum attendance at online sessions of 75%.
  2. Submit completed work as part of the capstone project after the end of the taught sessions

Participants who meet this criteria will be emailed after the end of the course with a link, and instructions on how to access their University of Oxford digital certificate. 

The certificate will show your name, the course title and the dates of the course you attended. You will also be able to download your certificate or share it on social media if you choose to do so.

Fees

Description Costs
Standard course fee £1440.00

Payment

All courses are VAT exempt.

Register immediately online 

Click the “book now” button on this webpage. Payment by credit or debit card is required.

Request an invoice

If you require an invoice for your company or personal records, please contact the course administration team. 

Payment is accepted online, by credit/debit card, or by bank transfer. Please do not send card or bank details via email.

Tutors

Dan James

Course Director and Speaker

Founder at Jobgraph, Advisor to UK Cabinet Office and Director of AI at Ministry of Justice

Dan James is an AI and data leader with a passion for harnessing technology to elevate human expertise and capability. He serves as a Senior Advisor to the UK Government on AI adoption and is the Director of AI & Digital Innovation at the Ministry of Justice, where he leads AI strategy in the UK’s largest operational public sector department.

Dan is also the founder of Jobgraph, a company dedicated to shaping the future of work. Jobgraph collaborates with global businesses to model and predict how emerging technologies, such as AI, will transform day-to-day jobs. The company also specialises in developing evaluation methods and scaling these solutions in practical, real-world settings.

Ajit Jaokar

Course Director and Speaker

Ajit is a dedicated leader and teacher in Artificial Intelligence (AI), with a strong background in AI for Cyber-Physical Systems, research, entrepreneurship, and academia. 

Currently, he serves as the Course Director for several AI programs at the University of Oxford and is a Visiting Fellow in Engineering Sciences at the University of Oxford. His work is rooted in the interdisciplinary aspects of AI, such as AI integration with Digital Twins and Cybersecurity.

His courses have also been delivered at prestigious institutions, including the London School of Economics (LSE), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), and as part of The Future Society at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

As an Advisory AI Engineer, Ajit specialises in developing innovative, early-stage AI prototypes for complex applications. His work focuses on leveraging interdisciplinary approaches to solve real-world challenges using AI technologies.

Ajit has shared his expertise on technology and AI with several high-profile platforms, including the World Economic Forum, Capitol Hill/White House, and the European Parliament.

Ajit is currently writing a book aimed at teaching AI through mathematical foundations at the high school level.

Ajit resides in London, UK, and holds British citizenship. He is actively engaged in advancing AI education and innovation both locally and globally. He is neurodiverse - being on the high functioning autism spectrum.

Ajit's work in teaching, consulting, and entrepreneurship is grounded in methodologies and frameworks he developed through his AI teaching experience. These methodologies help to rapidly develop complex, interdisciplinary AI solutions in a relatively short time. These include:
1. The Jigsaw Methodology for low-code data science to non-developers.
2. The AI Product Manager framework and AI product market fit framework 
3. Software engineering with the LLM stack 
4. Agentic RAG for cyber-physical systems.
5. AI for Engineering sciences: 
6. The ability of AI to reason using large language models

He also consults at senior advisory levels to companies.

His newsletter on AI in Linkedin has a wide following 
https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/artificial-intelligence-6793973274368856064/

David Knott

Speaker

Chief Technology Officer, UK Government

David Knott is an experienced IT leader, architect and strategist with over thirty years experience of designing, delivering and running IT for companies in the banking, insurance, media, utilities and transportation sectors.

Tugce Yalcin

Speaker

Senior Consultant, DLA Piper 

Tugce is Senior Consultant in the M&A/Corporate practice of DLA Piper (London/Vienna) and Head of its "Austria-China-Desk", having obtained degrees in law, political science and the bilingual (German and English) Master's Programme in European Union Studies.

She advises national and international clients on cross-border M&A and financial transactions as well as corporate restructurings and has been working with technology companies as part of her work ranging from a number of areas such as acquisitions of leading AI/ICO companies. Tugce regularly publishes on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in M&A transactions in peer-reviewed journals and is currently working on a survey paper for AI and Intellectual Property Rights covering industries such as bioinformatics and cybersecurity.

Tugce passed the Austrian Bar Exam with summa cum laude. Tugce is also a Visiting Researcher at the University of Oxford and a PhD student at the University of London where she also edits the Student Law Review, and is also the Editorial Board Member of the journal The Company Lawyer (Sweet & Maxwell / Thomson Reuters).

Application

If you would like to discuss your application or any part of the application process before applying, please click the 'Ask a question' button at the top of this page.

IT requirements

This course is delivered online using Microsoft Teams. You will be required to follow and implement the instructions we send you to fully access Microsoft Teams on the University of Oxford's secure IT network.

To participate you must be familiar with using a computer for purposes such as sending email and searching the Internet. You will also need regular access to the Internet and a computer meeting our recommended minimum computer specification.

It is advised to use headphones with working speakers and microphone.

No additional software is required.

Terms & conditions for applicants and students

Information on financial support