The following piece ran in the Scotsman on Tuesday, June 2, 2026 ahead of Civic University: Democracy, AI, and the Public Imagination at the University of Edinburgh Futures Institute.  

By Catriona Stewart, Education Correspondent

Published 2nd Jun 2026, 06:00 BST

Scotland is uniquely well-placed to use AI to help redefine the purpose of universities, a former Obama advisor has said.

World-leading technology expert Professor Beth Simone Noveck said higher education is at a crossroads of financial emergency and the rise of AI.

Rather than focus on funding, however, institutions should work to rethink what the next generation of institutions looks like.

“Scotland is extraordinarily well positioned for all of this,” she said.

“There’s a lot of hand-wringing and wrestling with the question of the future, especially around the cost of universities.

“But in this day and age, especially the age of artificial intelligence, we should always have been asking ourselves, what is the purpose of university?”

Audit Scotland and the Scottish Funding Council last year produced reports outlining a bleak financial picture, with 11 of Scotland’s 19 universities projected to run deficits.

The sector is currently struggling with cost cutting, redundancies and strikes.

Prof Noveck, former Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the White House, said the bigger question is being ignored: what are universities actually for?

The academic, who was also the United States’ first State Chief AI Strategist, claimed the crisis is an opportunity to build a model that measures success by the positive impact on society.

She said:

“Universities have asked themselves what they are for in recent years but unfortunately it is getting drowned out and overshadowed by economic questions.

“I think there is a way to do well by doing good, and we need to stick to our guns in terms of recognising that public purpose and social impact should be the central driving force of what universities are for, and young people are demanding it.”

Prof Noveck previously led President Barack Obama’s Open Government Initiative and has advised governments across the world.

She will be speaking on Tuesday at an event, Civic University – Democracy, AI, and the Public Imagination, at the University of Edinburgh’s Futures Institute and online.

She claimed the success of a university should be measured in the positive societal impact its graduates have on communities.

“We’re missing an opportunity in terms of the goal, the vision, the mission of the institution, the focus of research, and where we’re investing in funding, the teaching opportunities for students that we have, what our students are working on in terms of work and projects and classes that they have available to them, and then the careers that we are pushing people towards and into,” she said.

“All of these together are areas that are in need of a new hard look in the world that we’re living in.”

Prof Noveck runs a programme called AI For Impact with college, university and graduate students who take paid time out of their studies to work with a government partner on solving a real-world problem.

In one situation, students worked with a US state that was building tools to help small communities apply for grant money.

They used AI to create a tool to help organisations write grant applications.

The experience also helps bolster their CVs.

Her course, Solving Public Problems, was first run at New York University and Northeastern University, but is now a free online programme used by learners in 150 countries.

“The debates around social media and the mental health of kids, and digital distraction are causing this knee-jerk, anti-technology reflex, but as a result, if we stick our head in the sands and ban these tools, we create a digital divide,” she said.

Prof Noveck described this as a three-way digital divide of pupils who are ignorant of AI and unable to use those tools; those who use AI “slavishly” without underlying critical skills; and those who have core critical skills and can use AI to help augment them.

“All the data shows, in terms of how people interact with AI in the workplace, is that humans plus AI are more productive, more powerful, more effective than AI by itself or humans by themselves,” she said.

“So the question is of how we create this new, joined-up, synthesised hybrid world in which humans are on top and AI is on tap, not the other way around.”

Education systems are struggling with this, but it is “very early days for these tools”.

She said the response is not to train students for the tools of today but to train them for “the problems of tomorrow”.

Complex problem solving and communication skills are vital.

She said that “impact university” and working on social impact teach young people those skills.

There is, however, work to be done in reassuring learners and the public that AI can be trusted.

Prof Noveck said the number one step is education, to ensure those “buying, building, using these tools actually have some clue what they’re doing”.

She cited the example of the Post Office Horizon scandal — where postmasters became victims of government failings in how the computer software was used — as reasons to be distrustful.

Without education, “there is a danger that we’re going to buy some really stupid stuff,” she added, that does not work or is, at worst, dangerous.

“It also starts with, I think, centring our use of technology on public purpose and really ensuring that we are not just asking what is the cheapest thing or what is the most efficient thing,” she said.

“We need to be thinking about how we measure these things in terms of societal impact.”

Public consultation and involvement is also vital, she said, citing Scotland as being “a pioneer in public engagement, far ahead of other jurisdictions”.

“Number one, because of that public engagement history. Number two, because of the rich university traditions and history and excellence,” she said.

“Other places have to figure out how do we even get to the starting line in terms of what its universities are doing or building excellence in research culture and faculty.

“Scotland has all of that in terms of already having leading universities and in these universities you have a strong basis for reinvention that should be grasped.”