News and views from the Blavatnik School of Government community 
Whether the emergency is the outbreak of a new disease or a climate-related disaster, it is critical for policymakers to ensure adequate resources are available before disaster strikes. Yet the US is often underprepared for high-risk events with a high probability, with irrational decision making and interest group politics leading […]
At the time of writing, COVID-19 is finding new epicentres, with the surrounding confusion and misinformation increasing day by day. There have been pandemics before, but one in the age of social media is a historic first that has thrown up problems that are more than medical. Whatsapp, Facebook and […]
Whenever you ask a member of the Blavatnik School admissions team how they are at this time of year, you can guarantee the answer will be: “Busy!” Since the application deadline for the Master of Public Policy closed, they’ve been working to process well over 700 applications from 99 countries […]
In October 2019, demonstrators took to the streets of Lebanon, chanting “all of them means all of them”— a cry for the entire government to resign. For the first time in years, the country witnessed the mobilisation of thousands of its citizens across every city. There were even Lebanese protests […]
Historically, English local councils aspired to be self-sufficient. Despite engaging in thorough collaboration with agencies outside of the local government system, local authorities have exhibited a remarkable aversion to the kinds of inter-municipal collaboration commonly practised in Europe and the USA. But this changed markedly after 2010, with the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government […]
When we started our Master of Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and met all the students and staff, we could not help but feel overwhelmed by the diversity, the passion, the compassion and the vision that everyone had. What every single individual who studies and works here […]
With just over eight months to go, we now have a new COP26 president in place and preparations for the biggest international summit the UK has ever hosted are in full swing. Alok Sharma has no easy task. The eyes of the world will be on Glasgow this November for […]
I’ve just finished running a global commission based here at the Blavatnik School of Government: Pathways for Prosperity, co-chaired by – among others – Melinda Gates. It was set up to challenge the narrative that in developing countries, technology necessarily equals catastrophic job losses and widening inequalities, and to explore […]