An Exeter academic has co-created a new training programme for analysts in the Cabinet Office designed to embed Artificial Intelligence into civil service research practice. The Cabinet Office’s Government Social Research (GSR) Artificial Intelligence Accelerator Programme is intended to equip civil service social researchers with the skills to harness Artificial Intelligence responsibly and effectively, with the broader aim of improving the productivity of the Civil Service. The programme runs over 12 months and is tailored to the interests and needs of social researchers across No. 10, the Cabinet Office, and HM Treasury.
Professor Oliver Hauser, Deputy Director of the Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (IDSAI) and Professor of Economics at the University of Exeter Business School, is collaborating on the GSR Profession initiative with Dr Siobhan Dickens and Miriam Light, Co-Heads of the GSR Profession in No. 10, the Cabinet Office, and HM Treasury. Professor Hauser led many sessions in the workshop series and invited guest facilitators supported by IDSAI. Contributors included: Artificial Intelligence in Quantitative Research, with Professor Iavor Bojinov from Harvard Business School; Artificial Intelligence in Qualitative Research, with Professor Henri Schildt from Aalto University; Artificial Intelligence in Literature Review and Evidence Synthesis, with Professor James Thomas from UCL; Artificial Intelligence for Commissioned Research and Managing People, with Dr. Ben Walker from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero; and a panel on Artificial Intelligence and ethics including Professor Mariarosaria Taddeo (Oxford), Dr Carissa Véliz (Oxford) and Elliott Jones (AI Security Institute).
Professor Hauser said the initiative demonstrates the civil service’s commitment to staying at the forefront of evidence-based policymaking and highlighted IDSAI’s role in bringing global expertise to the programme. Miriam Light and Dr Siobhan Dickens described the programme as a collaboration between government research expertise and academic insight to help Whitehall teams use Artificial Intelligence confidently and responsibly. In addition to the GSR Artificial Intelligence Accelerator Programme, Professor Hauser serves as a senior advisor in the Cabinet Office’s Evaluation Task Force and holds additional advisory board appointments on the use and evaluation of Artificial Intelligence across the UK government.
