In this public event, Laura Gilbert, Director of Data Science in Number 10 Downing Street, and joint Chief Analyst for the Cabinet Office, shares her experiences of data, analysis, innovation, and adventures in rapid prototyping in central government. She discusses the potential benefits in unlocking government data, and how to achieve it.

This event celebrates the launch of MPA in Data Science for Public Policy programme. The MPA-DSPP is a two-year degree programme designed to equip professionals with the core quantitative, technical and analytical tools to address modern policy challenges in a world of big data and rapid technological change.

More about our speakers and chair

Laura Gilbert is the Director of Data Science in Number 10 Downing Street, and joint Chief Analyst for the Cabinet Office. Her teams provides fast-paced modelling and analysis to support policy making and delivery, and rapid prototyping to speed up government innovation. She also runs a broader radical transformation agenda promoting the better use of evidence, data and technology in government decision making.  She is currently running a program of innovation and digitisation in central government including rolling out close-to-free infrastructure for data sharing to speed up modernisation (Project rAPId)  and a program called Evidence House that relies on 700 volunteers (and growing) to deliver a combination of radial upskilling and home-grown AI solutions into public services.

Alexander Evans (@aiaevans) is Professor in Practice of Public Policy at LSE and the inaugural Programme Director of the MPA in Data Science for Public Policy. He is a former adviser to the Prime Minister in 10 Downing Street and Director Cyber at the Foreign Office where he was the U.K.’s chief international cyber policy negotiator. He has served as Strategy Director in the Cabinet Office which included overseeing the Government Strategic Management Office responsible for data analytics. He has also led a U.N. Security Council expert mission and served as a senior adviser at the U.S. Department of State.


The LSE School of Public Policy (@LSEPublicPolicy) equips you with the skills and ideas to transform people and societies. It is an international community where ideas and practice meet. Their approach creates professionals with the ability to analyse, understand and resolve the challenges of contemporary governance.

Changing the status quo – data and radical transformation at the heart of government

The LSE School of Public Policy is an international community where ideas and practice meet. Follow our podcast feed for the latest analysis and discussion on the challenges of contemporary governance, public policy and leadership.

Changing the status quo – data and radical transformation at the heart of government

LSE Public Policy Podcasts