The Ada Lovelace Institute (Ada) is recruiting a strategic, curious, and well-connected Head of EU and Global AI Governance to lead our EU and international policy work.

Based in Brussels, you’ll be at the forefront of shaping laws and policies that ensure data and AI serve people and society. You’ll work closely with senior leadership, represent Ada in influential forums, and collaborate across teams to deliver high-impact research and engagement. This is a unique opportunity to influence global conversations on AI governance, build trusted relationships with decision-makers, and help steer Ada’s strategic direction in Europe and internationally.

Working closely with Ada’s senior leadership team, this role will lead our EU and international policy research and engagement, using evidence to help shape laws and policies that ensure data and AI serve people and society. You’ll be responsible for designing and delivering strategic interventions across European and global forums, building trusted relationships with senior stakeholders, and supporting the impact of Ada’s work through high-quality research, convening, and collaboration.

You’ll work across the organisation, particularly with Communications, Operations and Policy & Public Affairs colleagues, to ensure our policy outputs are timely, relevant, and influential. You’ll also advise and contribute to projects across other research domains, helping to embed policy thinking into Ada’s broader research and engagement work.

We’re looking for someone with strong policy and social science research skills, and a deep understanding of legislative, regulatory, and governance approaches to AI and data. You’ll be comfortable navigating complex policy landscapes, and confident representing Ada in high-profile forums such as the European Commission, Parliament, Council, and international bodies like UNESCO and the OECD.

You’ll bring experience in:

• Strategic policy planning and stakeholder engagement

• Policy and legal/legislative analysis

• Responsive research and commissioned projects

• Convening expert groups, workshops, and public forums

• Communicating complex ideas to diverse audiences

You’ll also have line management and staff development experience and be confident overseeing external collaborators and consultants to ensure quality and delivery.

We welcome candidates from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, including law, political science, data science, and more, and are particularly interested in those who enjoy working across teams, jumping into new policy areas, and thinking creatively about how to influence change.

You may have a background working in a policy or regulatory setting, or have extensive experience influencing policy and regulation. You know your way around the EU or equivalent international policy landscape, have been following key pieces of policy and regulation evolving around data and AI, and enjoy getting up to speed on new technical debates. You are curious and passionate about the issues which arise at the intersection of technology and society, and committed to bring multidisciplinary, sociotechnical and public evidence to bear on policy making. You’re excited about the opportunity to work with some autonomy in a fast paced and fast-growing organisation, taking a lead role in developing Ada’s position in Europe.

This is a senior role with significant autonomy and visibility. It’s an excellent opportunity to shape emerging discourse, policy, and practice around AI and data governance at a European and global level, working with an interdisciplinary team committed to ensuring technology serves the public good.

Ada’s approach to policy and influencing 

In order to ensure that our work informs policy priorities, law and regulation of data and AI, we:

• Intervene early and deeply: we are selective and focus on engagement early in policy development, which draws on extensive research, legal analysis or deliberation

• Work in partnership: we develop relationships with decision-makers and sectoral partners to shape development and practice on the ground

• Bring sociotechnical perspectives and public voices: we draw on multiple disciplines and perspectives to ensure the policy and regulatory development is informed by a range of evidence, approaches and experience.

• Build tools and capacity: we acknowledge the novelty and challenge of evolving data and AI tools and support building critical understanding through briefings, tools and frameworks.

For further information about the role, please download the full job description (PDF).

About us 

The Ada Lovelace Institute is an independent research institute funded and incubated by the Nuffield Foundation since 2018. Our mission is to ensure data and artificial intelligence work for people and society. We do this by building evidence and fostering rigorous debate on how data and AI affect people and society.  We recognise the power asymmetries that exist in ethical and legal debates around the development of data-driven technologies and seek to level those asymmetries by convening diverse voices and creating a shared understanding of the ethical issues arising from data and AI. Finally, we seek to define and inform good practice in the design and deployment of AI technologies.   

The Institute has emerged as a leading independent voice on the ethical and societal impacts of data and AI. We have built relationships in the public, private and civil society sectors in the UK and internationally. Please find details of our work here.  

Our research takes an interconnected approach to issues such as power, social justice, distributional impact, and our team have a wide range of expertise that cuts across policy, technology, academia, industry, law and human rights.   

As part of the Nuffield Foundation, we are an Institute with the practical support of an established organisation that cares for its employees. We value diversity in background, skills, perspectives and life experiences. Further information on the Foundation’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion work can be found here. 

Further information and how to apply 

The closing date for applications is 09:30AM (BST) on Monday 8th September 2025, with a first stage of interviews expected to take place on 24th and/or 25th September 2025.

If you have any questions about the role ahead of applying (or need to make an application in a different format), please email recruitment@nuffieldfoundation.org and a member of the Nuffield Foundation’s HR team will respond to you.  

We use the Applied platform to reduce potential cognitive biases in our hiring process.  You will be required to complete some questions as part of this application process, and you are also required to upload an up-to-date copy of your CV. The Applied platform lets you save an application and resume it ahead of submitting before the application deadline.  

The Nuffield Foundation and its Centres think deeply about the role of emerging technology in society. All recruitment decisions are made by a person (we do not use AI tools to rate or reject applicants). We ask applicants to respond to the questions using their own experience, thinking and opinion, writing in their own tone of voice rather than using generative AI tools such as ChatGPT. The use of generative AI can result in generic responses to individual questions which stand out less to reviewers.

We are committed to inclusive working practices and during the application process we will offer an interview to a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants that meet the essential criteria for the job. We will also make reasonable adjustments where required - for example providing documents in different formats, allowing extra time if required for any assessments etc 

Our benefits package for Brussels-based employees includes: 

• 20 days’ vacation per annum, all public holidays and additional time off for office closure over Christmas.

• Consideration of requests for part time and/or flexible working (eg compressed hours arrangements, job sharing etc) 

• Meal vouchers

• Health insurance (subject to qualifying period) and group insurance/pension scheme

• Contribution towards commuting expenses (public transport or personal bicycle)

• Allowance towards home-working costs

• Frequent opportunities for learning and development (including regular reading/development days and options for coaching and mentoring)

• Support with your physical, mental and financial wellbeing.

• Staff peer groups and social networks.