Europe is at a crossroads. Slower growth, geopolitical pressure, and rapid technological change are forcing hard choices. This panel event brings together Gabriel Attal, Gillian Tett, Lord Booth-Smith, and Menna Rawlings to debate Europe’s next chapter: how to boost growth, govern AI credibly, and deliver reform at speed.
Europe’s innovation statecraft
Europe is at a crossroads: slower growth, rising geopolitical pressure, and accelerating technological change are forcing hard choices. Europe’s next chapter is a political and policy-focused panel exploring what Europe should prioritise next, and how leaders can actually deliver.
The discussion will focus on strategy, trade-offs, and execution: Europe’s competitiveness agenda, innovation and industrial policy, the politics of reform, and the governance choices around AI that will shape prosperity, sovereignty, and democratic resilience for decades to come.
Key takeaways you can expect:
- A clear view of the main policy levers Europe can pull to accelerate growth and productivity.
- How leaders are thinking about AI: opportunity, risk, and what “credible governance” looks like in practice.
- What Europe must change to move faster: institutions, incentives, and political coalitions.
- A sharper understanding of Europe’s positioning between the US and China, and what “strategic autonomy” could mean in the next decade.
- Concrete themes to watch in 2026: reforms, investment priorities, and likely political fault lines.
Guest speakers
Gabriel Attal served as Prime Minister of France from January to September 2024, becoming modern France’s youngest head of government. He is currently General Secretary of Renaissance, the principal centrist, pro-European party in President Emmanuel Macron’s political family, and leads the Renaissance group in the French National Assembly, where he represents the Hauts-de-Seine constituency.
The Rt Hon Liam Booth-Smith is a British political adviser and member of the House of Lords, with experience at the centre of UK government and at the frontier of emerging technology policy. He served as Downing Street Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak from October 2022 to July 2024, after previously advising Sunak at HM Treasury and working in No.10 during Boris Johnson’s premiership.
Dr Gillian Tett was elected to serve as Provost to King’s College, Cambridge, in 2023. Gillian also writes weekly columns covering economic, financial, political, and social issues for the US Financial Times and is the co-founder of FT Moral Money, a newsletter that tracks the ESG revolution in business and finance.
Chair
Dame Menna Rawlings became President of Queens’ College Cambridge, on 1 October 2025, the first woman to take up that role. This followed a long career in diplomacy and public service. Previously, Menna was British Ambassador to France and to Monaco (2021-2025) and British High Commissioner to Australia (2015-2019).
Organiser and opening remarks
Hugo Martin de Faure is an MPhil in Public Policy student at the Bennett School of Public Policy Cambridge, focused on technology policy, state capacity, and frontier innovation governance. He is a graduate of INSEAD and EHL.
This is a student-led event, supported by the Bennett School of Public Policy
