Routinely collected UK government data sets contain staggering amounts of information. The potential for the use of these data to understand how government policies are changing people’s lives, to aid better decision making and to hold government accountable for the policies they make is enormous.
The process is not however all plain sailing. Good, big, and representative data sets are essential, and datasets are often far from perfect with inherent biases and missing entries. Cleaning data is time consuming and labour intensive and analysis requires skilled data scientists. These issues can be overcome or at least mitigated, and in the future government policies could be based on evidence drawn from these data and tested on model populations prior to implementation.
Meet our speakers and chair
Sara Geneletti is Associate Professor in the Department of Statistics at LSE and the Programme Director for the Health Data Science MSc. Her research interests centre around applied causal inference, an area of statistical methodology concerned with identifying and estimating effects of interventions. As part of her current research, she, and fellow researchers, are developing statistical tools which can harness the emergence of big population data sets to demonstrate the impact of government policy on society.
Laura Gilbert (@statsArePower) is Head of the AI for Government Program at the Ellison Institute of Technology in Oxford. As part of this role she works with both the Tony Blair Institute, and the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation as an expert advisor in AI. She is a Visiting Professor in Practice at the LSE School of Public Policy specialising in technical data science, and in the effective communication of evidence. Previously she worked as Director of Data Science in 10 Downing Street.
Helen Margetts (@HelenMargetts, @helenmargetts.bsky.social) is Professor of Society and the Internet at the University of Oxford. She is a Turing Fellow and Director of the Public Policy Programme at The Alan Turing Institute. Helen sits on the UK government’s Digital Economy Council, the Home Office Scientific Advisory Council, the WEF Global Agenda Council on Agile Government and the Ada Lovelace Institute for Data Ethics.
Alexander Evans (@aiaevans) is Associate Dean for Strategic Development at the LSE School of Public Policy. A Professor in Practice in Public Policy, he directs the LSE's Professional Skills Accelerator and the MPA in Data Science for Public Policy. He teaches graduate courses on international diplomacy and technology, data science and policymaking. He is also Director of the LSE IDEAS Ratiu Forum.
More about this event
This event is part of the LSE Festival: Visions for the Future running from Monday 16 to Saturday 21 June 2025, with a series of events exploring the threats and opportunities of the near and distant future, and what a better world could look like. Booking for all Festival events will open on Monday 19 May.
The Data Science Institute (DSI) (@LSEDataScience, @lsedatascience.bsky.social) in an interdisciplinary institute fostering the study of data science and AI with a focus on the social sciences through research, education and engagement
The Department of Statistics (@LSEStatistics) is home to internationally respected experts in statistics and data science.
Hashtag for this event: #LSEFestival
LSE holds a wide range of events, covering many of the most controversial issues of the day, and speakers at our events may express views that cause offence. The views expressed by speakers at LSE events do not reflect the position or views of The London School of Economics and Political Science.