During his policy fellowship with Brunel’s Cigdem Sengul, Akachukwu Okoli (Senior project manager, DEFRA), conducted a systematic review of 40+ empirical studies on the adoption and implementation of AI within public sector institutions to identify evidence, gaps and lessons for the UK.
Akachukwu took part in the Open Innovation Team (OIT) Policy Fellowship Scheme, which matches civil servants with academics who provide part time mentorship on research to support and underpin their policy work. He was matched with Dr Cigdem Sengul, Reader in Computer Science at Brunel. Find out more about the policy fellowship scheme here.
Based on research during this fellowship, Akachukwu and Cigdem produced a report that interprets the international evidence to identify where the UK's current trajectory aligns with patterns that have led to challenges elsewhere and offers five recommendations to avoid them:
- Establish Standardised AI Readiness Assessments as a Precondition for Procurement
- Use Scope Constraints as Governance Readiness, not just a Project Management Tool
- Redesign Human Oversight to Serve as a Corrective Function, not a Validation Step
- Establish Independent Oversight Mechanisms
- Invest in Contextually Grounded Implementation Research
Read the full report here