Spotlighting one of the diverse projects recently supported by the Vice-Chancellor's Fund for 2024-25, Regent's academic Dr. Francesco Gualdi shares an insight into 'AI’s transformational impact on policies: lessons from public services for university governance’, a collaborative project with Associate Head of School for Business, Professor Vincent Ong.
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AI’s transformational impact on policies: lessons from public services for university governance
When we talk about artificial intelligence (AI), conversations often revolve around technological capability – algorithms, automation, and data analytics. Yet the most profound transformations may not be technical at all. They lie in the way AI reshapes how governments make and deliver policy. This realisation inspired our project, Disrupting Policies: AI and its Transformational Impact on Public Services, which explores how AI systems are subtly, yet powerfully, altering public policy processes in Peru’s welfare sector.
The project emerged from an intellectual curiosity shared by myself and my colleague, Prof. Vincent Ong. We were struck by the speed at which AI is entering public administrations across the world, often faster than policymakers can fully comprehend its implications. In many Global South contexts, these transformations are happening under unique institutional pressures: fragile governance systems, uneven access to data, and external dependencies on global tech providers. Peru offered a particularly rich case. As one of Latin America’s most active adopters of digital technologies in welfare delivery, it provides a vivid example of how innovation meets bureaucracy - and how technologies not only execute policy but begin to redefine it.
Support from the Vice-Chancellor's Fund
Turning such a project from an idea into reality required more than intellectual drive. Field-based qualitative research across continents entails travel, logistical coordination, and institutional support. The Vice-Chancellor's (VC) Fund became the catalyst that made this possible. Without it, our project would likely have remained theoretical. The VC’s Fund provided the resources that enabled us to travel to Brazil to present our early findings at the 26th Digital Government Society Conference, one of the most respected international forums on digital governance. This opportunity was more than an academic milestone; it validated our conceptual framework and embedded Regent’s University London within a global research network. The fund also supported our fieldwork in Lima, Peru, where we gained privileged access to the government departments leading AI-driven welfare reforms. Conducting interviews and observing institutional processes on the ground has added an invaluable empirical dimension to our work.
Just as importantly, the VC’s Fund’s administrative clarity and flexibility allowed us to navigate the unexpected. When a government reshuffle temporarily disrupted fieldwork plans, the scheme’s adaptable structure meant we could redirect our efforts without losing momentum. For me, this level of responsiveness demonstrates the VC’s Fund’s real value, not just as financial assistance, but as an enabler of academic resilience and creativity.
Collaboration and cross-disciplinary exchange
This project has been inherently collaborative. Within our team our dialogue has been central to the project’s intellectual richness. Collaboration also extended beyond our institution. Through the Digital Government Society Conference, we connected with scholars examining similar dynamics in other countries, creating the foundations for comparative research on AI and governance.
In Peru, collaboration took on a more applied dimension. We worked closely with local policymakers and analysts to understand how AI systems are designed and implemented in welfare delivery. These interactions highlighted the tensions between technological promise and institutional reality. Such exchanges have not only enriched our dataset but also offered Peruvian policymakers reflective tools to examine their own practices.
Within Regent’s, the project is fostering new forms of knowledge integration. The findings have been refined for dissemination through the Learning, Teaching, Research and Scholarship (LTRS) 2025 conference. We showcased how the conceptual framework we had developed can be applied in classroom discussions and future research projects across disciplines.
Looking ahead: ideas for future inspiration
I hope that academic colleagues may find two aspects of this journey particularly meaningful. First, it underscores the importance of connecting global research with local institutional realities. Too often, conversations about AI and public policy remain anchored in Global North contexts. By focusing on Peru, our project opens space for diverse perspectives and highlights how digital transformation unfolds in emerging governance systems.
Second, it shows the power of relatively small but strategically designed funding to generate impact. The VC’s Fund didn’t just finance travel. It built bridges: between Regent’s and international conferences, between theory and fieldwork, and between researchers and practitioners across continents. These bridges now support an expanding research trajectory that will likely produce future publications, collaborations, and teaching innovations.
We believe that projects like this can help shape a new identity for Regent’s, one that champions intellectually rigorous, globally engaged, and socially relevant research. As AI continues to transform governance, our role as scholars is not only to understand the technology but to interpret how it reorganises public values, accountability, and trust. This project is just the beginning of that exploration.