Trust, Accountability and Purpose
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The collapse of trust can be found across all of our institutions but most of all in finance. This Element seeks to answer an existential question: how to rebuild trust in distrusting times? Integrity, responsibility and accountability must be embedded into corporate mission statements, values and codes of conduct. Through organisational and regulatory design across five interlocking themes - legal, regulatory, managerial, ethical and social. What is required is substantive rather than technical compliance; warranted rather than stated commitment to high ethical standards; effective deterrence strategies; enhanced accountability; and a shared commitment to risk within negotiated, binding and enforceable parameters.
Justin O'Brien
Justin O'Brien is a psychologist, academic and AI consultant. He has spent more than three decades in academic research and teaching at London universities, following a PhD in visual perception at University College London. His work has increasingly focused on the use of data and artificial intelligence to understand the operation and finances of higher education. His 2026 report The 2026 Reckoning analysed the financial position of 150 UK universities and has been downloaded more than 8,000 times. Regulated to Fail develops that work into a broader examination of the financial, regulatory and policy structures that have shaped British higher education.
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