Ole Helby appointed Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford

It is not every day that you are appointed professor at one of the world’s most renowned universities. But that is now the case for Roskilde University Professor Ole Helby Petersen.

For the next three years, he will serve as Visiting Professor at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. In this role, he will help develop new research and teaching collaborations between Oxford and Roskilde University.

The appointment followed a professorial assessment at Oxford, including an evaluation of his CV and publication record as well as external assessments from researchers at leading universities in the United States.

“I see this as a great opportunity to connect our already strong research environment at Roskilde University even more closely with a leading international academic environment. It can create new research collaborations and open up new opportunities for our students,” says Ole Helby Petersen.

From AI at RUC to teaching at Oxford

One of the first concrete areas of collaboration concerns the use of artificial intelligence in teaching.

In the Master’s course Policy and Politics in a Modern Democracy at Roskilde University, Ole Helby Petersen and his colleagues have developed a teaching programme in which students learn to use AI and large language models as an integrated part of their academic work.

Among other things, students are trained to formulate prompts, work in ways that require them to continuously assess, correct and steer the contribution made by AI, and use AI as a critical discussion partner throughout the working process.

“The point is to shift the focus away from whether AI can write an assignment for a student and towards how the technology can be used to support learning, human oversight and critical reflection,” says Ole Helby Petersen.

He will teach this approach to students at the Blavatnik School of Government in December 2026 and January 2027.

“The discussion about AI at universities still focuses heavily on whether students should be allowed to use language models such as ChatGPT. I think it is more interesting to ask how we can design teaching and set assessment requirements in ways that allow AI to contribute to learning and academic reflection,” he says.

The collaboration with Oxford also builds on Ole Helby Petersen’s research into how the public sector works with the private sector, including through public procurement, outsourcing and long-term contracts.

Ole Helby Petersen teaches and supervises students on both the Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes in Politics and Administration at Roskilde University.