MSc Artificial Intelligence Governance and Ethics
- MSc
Overview
AI is rapidly remaking economies, institutions, and daily life, raising urgent questions our governments, organisations, and legal systems are struggling to answer. The technology is moving faster than the laws and norms meant to govern it, and choices being made now will shape our societies for decades to come. To lead this transformation, governments, industries and the public need graduates who can critically engage with these technologies, make robust ethical decisions, and communicate both technical ideas and governing frameworks.
This is a degree for people who want to govern AI, reckon with its social impacts, and launch a professional or research career in responsible AI.
Bristol sits at the center of the UK’s AI infrastructure, home to Isambard-AI, the country’s most powerful supercomputer, and has major research strengths in socio-technical studies and digital governance. The University’s leadership in this area is reflected in initiatives such as the Bristol Digital Futures Institute and the Centre for Sociodigital Futures, which bring together researchers, public partners, industry, and civil society to examine how digital technologies are reshaping social, political, and economic life. You’ll study how AI should be governed within an institution that is helping shape how it is understood, built, and deployed.
Designed for students from a range of backgrounds, foundational units give every student key technical literacies and research skills. The programme's center of gravity is ethical reasoning, critical analysis, and policy development: evaluating AI's ethical, legal, and societal implications, and translating that judgement into informed analysis and policy.
Demand for this expertise is rising across government and business as organisations face growing regulatory and public expectations around responsible AI. You'll work through real cases from government, industry, and civil society, learning to translate abstract principles into concrete institutional judgement and to make difficult AI questions legible to a non-technical audience. You'll bring that thinking together in a capstone, taken either as a dissertation or as an applied project with an external partner.
The programme is central to the Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Science’s vision for courses that prepare a new generation of leaders to grapple with the challenges facing humanity in the decades to come. Hosted by the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS), the programme draws together research expertise from across the Faculty and University, with purpose-built units offered by Computer Science, Law, Philosophy, Sociology, and Economics. It approaches AI from a range of perspectives, examining themes such as risk and accountability, the concentration of power, automation and work, regulation and standards, international competition, and the ethics of AI in public life.
Programme structure
Students take three core units (60 credits) in Teaching Block 1, three specialised optional units (60 credits, from a choice of four) in Teaching Block 2, and a 60-credit supervised capstone in Teaching Block 3.
Teaching Block 1 builds a common foundation across a diverse cohort through technical AI, socio-technical and ethical frameworks, and digital research methods. Teaching Block 2 lets students pursue disciplinary depth through options spanning law and regulation, political economy, AI ethics, and the sociology of digital and technological transformation. The capstone integrates these strands, offered as either a conventional 12,000-word dissertation or an applied dissertation placing students with a commercial, public, or third-sector partner to address a real research brief.
Visit our programme catalogue for full details of the structure and unit content for our MSc Artificial Intelligence Governance and Ethics.
Entry requirements
You will typically need a strong second-class honours degree (55% or higher) or an international equivalent in any discipline.
If you are currently completing a degree, we understand that your final grade may be higher than the interim grades or module/unit grades you have achieved during your studies to date.
We will consider your application if your interim grades are currently slightly lower than the programme's entry requirements and may make you an aspirational offer. This offer would be at the standard level, so you would need to achieve the standard entry requirements by the end of your degree.
We will also consider your application if your final overall achieved grade is slightly lower than the programme's entry requirement.
If your achieved grade is lower than our entry requirements, your application may be more likely to receive an offer if you have additional qualifications. If you have additional qualifications, please include your CV (curriculum vitae / résumé) when you apply, showing:
- a postgraduate qualification in any discipline.
See international equivalent qualifications on the International Office website.
Read the programme admissions statement for important information on entry requirements, the application process and supporting documents required.
If English is not your first language, you will need to reach the requirements outlined in our profile level E.
Further information about English language requirements and profile levels.
Fees and funding
- Home: full-time
- £16,000 per year
- Overseas: full-time
- £31,500 per year
Fees are subject to an annual review. For programmes that last longer than one year, please budget for up to an 8% increase in fees each year.
More about tuition fees, living costs and financial support.
Alumni discount
University of Bristol students and graduates can benefit from a 25% reduction in tuition fees for postgraduate study. Check your eligibility for an alumni discount.
Funding and scholarships
Further information on funding for prospective UK and international postgraduate students.
Career prospects
Graduates will be prepared for careers across public policy, regulation, industry, civil society, and research, as organizations seek people who can understand AI systems and respond to their social, ethical, and institutional consequences. Potential roles include policy analyst, AI governance or responsible AI specialist, regulatory and compliance officer, risk and safety analyst, consultant, and researcher.
The programme develops skills that transfer directly into these settings: policy analysis and development, ethical reasoning, regulatory and compliance literacy, risk management, research design, data and digital literacy, stakeholder communication, critical evaluation, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
The applied dissertation route gives students direct experience of the professional environments many will enter, working with an external partner on a live brief. The conventional route supports those progressing toward doctoral research. Typical destinations are anticipated to include roles in government and regulatory bodies, technology companies and consultancies, think tanks and NGOs, and further academic study.
Contact us
- Contact
- Enquiries Team
- Phone
- +44 (0) 117 394 1649
- choosebristol-pg@bristol.ac.uk