Imperial Business School has launched a master’s degree combining artificial intelligence, economics, law, and governance, as demand grows for graduates able to work across technical systems and policy frameworks.
The MSc AI, Economics and Policy will be delivered jointly by Imperial Business School and Imperial College London’s Department of Computing. Applications are due to open in August 2026, with the first cohort starting in September 2027.
Imperial said the programme is the UK’s first master’s degree to combine technical AI training with economics, law, and governance in a single curriculum. It will focus on how AI is governed, regulated, and applied in real world contexts, and how it is reshaping economic growth, competition, and digital markets.
The degree is aimed at recent graduates and early career professionals preparing for roles in AI governance, technology policy, digital regulation, legal technology and compliance, competition economics, AI strategy, risk consulting, government, regulators, and international organisations.
The curriculum will give students a foundation in AI systems and data driven technologies, alongside competition, digital markets, the economics of AI, and legal and regulatory approaches to governance. Students will also have the opportunity to complete an individual research project or internship.
Professor Tommaso Valletti, academic director of the MSc AI, Economics and Policy, said: “What makes this programme distinctive is its integrated approach. AI does not operate in isolation; it shapes markets, challenges existing regulation, and raises fundamental policy questions. By bringing together Imperial’s strengths in computing, economics and public policy, we are equipping students with the tools to understand how AI systems function in practice and how they should be governed in the real world.”
Dr Rob Craven, director of postgraduate studies in Imperial College London’s Department of Computing, said: “Students will benefit from the expertise of world-leading academics across both Imperial’s Department of Computing and Imperial Business School. This cross-disciplinary approach will equip students with a unique combination of skills and perspectives, enabling them to help shape the responsible development and governance of AI across industry, government and society.”
Professor Peter Todd, dean of Imperial Business School, said: “This programme is a direct expression of Imperial’s Science for Humanity mission: as Europe’s only leading business school embedded in a world-class STEM university, we can bring together computing, economics, law and governance in a single curriculum in a way few institutions can. At a moment when AI is reshaping industries and outpacing the frameworks designed to govern them, that breadth is not a luxury; it is exactly what the next generation of leaders will need.”
The programme is informed by Imperial’s links with organisations shaping AI governance, including the Information Commissioner’s Office, the Competition and Markets Authority, the Financial Conduct Authority, Ofcom, the European Commission, and international bodies.
The launch comes as AI governance becomes a mainstream business capability. Companies are no longer only asking whether AI tools can improve productivity. They are assessing competition risk, data protection, automated decision making, model oversight, regulatory exposure, explainability, and accountability.
Imperial’s AI research activity already extends into safety, reliability, and societal impact through the work described in Imperial and Thomson Reuters launch Frontier AI lab. The new master’s degree extends that institutional focus into talent development for policy and industry roles.
The skills gap is becoming more acute because AI implementation sits across functions. Legal teams need enough technical understanding to assess risk. Data scientists need commercial and regulatory context. Product teams need to understand fairness, competition, and customer outcomes. Boards need advisers who can translate system behaviour into governance decisions.
Regulators are also building their own capabilities. The CMA is examining AI’s effect on digital markets, the FCA is assessing model and conduct risk, Ofcom is dealing with platform and media issues, and the ICO is focused on data protection and automated processing. Those bodies need people who can understand both technical architecture and economic consequence.
AI governance cannot be left solely to compliance teams after products are built. It needs to be embedded into design, procurement, deployment, monitoring, and escalation. That requires people who can move between engineering, law, policy, economics, and strategy.
Imperial’s programme reflects a market where AI capability is interdisciplinary by necessity. Organisations using AI at scale will need not only developers and data scientists, but governance specialists able to judge whether systems should be deployed, how they should be constrained, and what effect they have on competition, customers, and society.
You must be logged in to post a comment.