The Bennett School of Public Policy opens this October, and is already leading work on two of the most pressing policy problems of our time: implementing AI and revitalising post-industrial areas.
The University of Cambridge today announces plans for a flagship public policy school, set to harness its world-famous academic community in the development of practical solutions to urgent policy problems – from tech disruption and climate damage to the effects of inequality.
The Bennett School of Public Policy, founded with support from the Peter Bennett Foundation, is set to open in the autumn. It will be the first major new academic department at Cambridge to be established this century.
Research priorities include two of the biggest policy challenges facing the UK and much of the world: plugging artificial intelligence into the private and public sectors, and the revival of post-industrial regions.
Researchers from the new School are investigating AI adoption by businesses, and working with the Civil Service on AI workflows, while others are finalising work on the British Constitution, and advising on how to bring together UK mayors and devolved leaders most effectively.
The School’s leadership say it will be defined by overcoming policy and academic silos to help foster a generation of tech-savvy and socially aware policymakers. The Bennett School is launching a new Masters course in Digital Policy, and will deliver Cambridge’s well-established Masters in Public Policy.
“The era of making policy in silos, where an issue is either just an education or an economy problem, for example, needs to be put behind us,” said Professor Dame Diane Coyle, co-director of the Bennett School.
“Today’s challenges, from effective uses of AI to reviving towns and regions, demand solutions that reflect expertise across disciplines and sectors,” Coyle said.
Professor Michael Kenny, co-director of the School, said: “With its place at the heart of Cambridge, experts on everything from sustainable economics to quantum computing will come together at the Bennett School.”
“We aim to train government thinkers committed to advancing good growth – fairly shared, inclusive and sustainable – who can set the policy agenda for a rapidly changing world.”
With the UK government seeking to “turbocharge AI”, the Bennett School has set up projects with businesses and the public sector to understand how AI can enhance operations.
For example, Coyle and colleagues are looking at how businesses from auto engineering to special effects are using Epic’s Unreal videogames engine in their processes, and separately at how officials can better utilise LLMs with a Bennett-produced AI toolkit.
“Why is it hard for organisations to adopt AI tools, even when it enables them to do in real-time on a screen those tasks it otherwise takes several days and outsourcing to achieve?” said Coyle. “What are the barriers to using technology in business? It’s an open question.”
Coyle, who sits on the UK’s Industrial Strategy Advisory Council as well as its New Towns Taskforce, is the architect of the new Masters in Digital Policy, commencing in 2026.
In this pioneering programme, policy professionals from around the world will be trained by leading Cambridge economists, political scientists, business and manufacturing experts, and machine-learning engineers – all on a single course.
“The US and China are way ahead on AI,” said Coyle. “The UK and EU need to focus on their own comparative advantages, and skill up a generation of policymakers to be smart data consumers, who understand data governance just as well as prompt engineering.”
Along with deep research into the British Constitution and future of the UK Union, the new School will continue research on reforming the way government works to tackle geographical inequality, much of which is already in use by officials in local and central government.
“There is palpable disillusionment across the UK with governments that seem to be too London-centric,” said Kenny. “This feeling is contributing to a wider, growing disenchantment with democracy in Britain.”
“In fact, our work shows political divisions emerging right across Europe between those living in cities and those in more rural areas such as the once-industrial towns that have struggled for decades,” said Kenny.
The Bennett School will build on Kenny’s work looking at “social infrastructure”: the parks, high streets and heritage sites that boost wellbeing and local pride, which he argues are as vital investment-wise as the giant infrastructure projects favoured by government.
Social infrastructure accounts for almost half the jobs in many coastal UK towns, an essential source of work for young people. Areas with fewer social facilities often have a higher proportion of ageing residents at risk of loneliness.
“Understanding how place, often at a hyper-local level, drives much of the political turbulence of our age, is a fundamental policy challenge for this century,” said Kenny.
The University’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof Deborah Prentice, said: “The establishment of the Bennett School of Public Policy will reinforce the University’s status as a global powerhouse for innovative and evidence-based public policy solutions.”
Peter Bennett said: “It gives me enormous pleasure to support the creation of the Bennett School of Public Policy. Significantly, this marks the establishment of a major new academic department at Cambridge for the first time in decades.”
“My involvement with public policy research at Cambridge has had a positive and lasting effect on my approach to philanthropy. Under the leadership of Dame Diane Coyle and Mike Kenny, the School is set to become truly influential in shaping how resources are used wisely and strategically for the common good.”
For more information about the Bennett School of Public Policy and its programmes, visit: bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/bennettschool
The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy.
