New blog address
Please note that the Blavatnik School of Government’s blog has now been moved to www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/voices.
Staff
Science and technology, Staff
Digital transformation is not a plug-and-play solution
There’s probably not a government on the planet that’s yet to fully realise the value and potential in digital. The opportunity to make services more efficient and grow the economy has pushed digital transformation to the forefront of government reforms. But despite the opportunities — and the ambitions of many […]
Admissions and Life at the School, Staff
Exploring public leadership in the BLM era: a case study on stop and search
Last year, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement focused global attention on the deep-seated challenges of racism and police violence in Black communities, with activists around the world advocating for racial justice on an unprecedented scale. This is a major challenge of our time – one that demands the attention […]
Admissions and Life at the School, Staff
Preparing to submit your application: final checklist
This time of year marks the run-up to the MPP and DPhil application deadline, which falls on Friday 8 January 2021 at midday (GMT). The week before the deadline is an extremely busy time for the admissions teams both at the Blavatnik School and at the University of Oxford, so […]
Governance, cooperation and law, Staff
Using evidence for better policymaking
Picture this. It’s 1932, the height of the Great Depression in the United States. The unemployment rate is over 20% and growing. American citizens are looking to the government for answers. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is running for the US presidency against incumbent President Herbert Hoover. On the campaign trail, FDR […]
Admissions and Life at the School, Staff
Admissions update: the final countdown
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 […]
Economic growth and resilience, Staff
Four lessons on how to run a policy commission
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 […]
Governance, cooperation and law, Staff
Why tax policies have to change in the next two decades and what it means for the sustainability of public finance
“Taxation is a complex technical issue, but that hasn’t stopped the Blavatnik School’s Master of Public Policy (MPP) students from rolling up their sleeves and getting down to the business of considering structural tax reform,” says Professor Karthik Ramanna, director of the MPP and co-author of the Future of Taxation […]