Richard de Blacquiere-Clarkson

I help universities, research organisations and other mission-led institutions make informed, defensible decisions about AI—and turn those decisions into practice. My work combines responsible AI strategy and ethics, research governance, capability development and organisational change. I design proportionate governance and ethics frameworks, assurance and review processes, decision tools, professional development and communities of practice that enable useful innovation while protecting accountability, integrity and institutional values.

As Founder and Lead of the University of Leeds AI Hub, I have built responsible AI communities, professional development programmes and governance frameworks at institutional scale. I also led the design of a university-wide research ethics review route and have published on AI ethics and the social implications of generative AI. From October 2026, I will support responsible AI practice and capability across the UK research sector through the national AI.RDN+ programme.

I am also co-founder of Humanity in the Loop, a global research network bringing diverse cultural and disciplinary perspectives into the research, ethics and practice of generative AI. This reflects a distinctive strength of my approach: connecting ethics with implementation and bringing people together around decisions they can explain, defend and act on.

I am available for advisory work, strategy and framework development, governance reviews, facilitated workshops, capability programmes and organisational change projects.