This high-profile event from the Bennett Institute for Public Policy brings together four senior academics from across the University of Cambridge who have all been advising policy makers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The speakers will draw on their extensive experience of advising and being consulted by policy-makers, and will reflect on some of the lessons, debates and controversies associated with governmental responses to the pandemic. And they will consider what this episode tells us about the relationship between science, evidence and public policy in times of crisis.

Our speakers are:  

• Professor Neil Lawrence, DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge, Senior AI Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute, visiting Professor at the University of Sheffield and the co-host of Talking Machines.
• Professor Theresa M Marteau DBE FMedSci, Director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit in the Clinical School at the University of Cambridge, and Director of Studies in Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at Christ’s College, Cambridge.  
• Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter FRS OBE, Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge.
• Professor Anna Vignoles FBA CBE, Faculty of Education and co Chair of the Centre for Data Driven Discovery at the University of Cambridge, ESRC Council Member, Trustee of the Nuffield Foundation and Fellow of the British Academy.

Chaired by Ehsan Masood, Editorials Editor & Bureau Chief for Africa and the Middle East, Nature.

There will be time for Q&A towards the end of the online event.

Event website and registration