← Back to FAIR Founder

Scott McCulloch

Founder, FAIR

M.S. Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London · LLB candidate, University of Law · Postgraduate study in AI Law, University of Oxford · Intellectual Property, Brunel University London

Scott McCulloch

Why I started FAIR

My final research project asked whether the copyright law of England and Wales is in alignment with the Government’s stated aims for artificial intelligence. I concluded that it is not. The Foundation exists, in part, to keep that finding moving from research into reform.Scott McCulloch

The research behind FAIR

The immediate catalyst for the Foundation was Scott McCulloch’s final research project for his LLB at the University of Law, completed in April 2026. The project, The Alignment Problem: Artificial Intelligence, Copyright Law, and the Case for Legislative Reform in England and Wales, examined whether the copyright law of England and Wales is in alignment with the Government’s two stated aims for AI: to “unleash the power of AI” by positioning the United Kingdom as the most pro-technology government, and to “preserve the central role of IP in promoting human creativity and innovation”. The work focused in particular on the text and data mining exception under section 29A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the protection of computer-generated works under section 9(3) of the same Act. The conclusion, on both heads, was that the existing law serves neither stated aim. From that finding came the conviction that a dedicated organisation was needed to carry the case for reform out of the research and into public-facing advocacy, and to do the same work for the public-sector AI deployments that no single dissertation could cover.

Why FAIR, and why now

FAIR was set up because the United Kingdom is, in his view, mid-way through deploying artificial intelligence across public services, including healthcare, welfare, immigration, policing and schools, faster than the rules to govern it. The Government’s promised AI Bill has been quietly dropped. The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 made it easier, not harder, for organisations to make automated decisions about people. And the groups most affected, including patients, benefits claimants, parents, school pupils and working creators, are not the groups currently being consulted.

The Foundation’s role, as Scott sees it, is to hold public-sector artificial intelligence to enforceable standards rather than voluntary commitments: transparency by default, a meaningful appeal route when something goes wrong, and ordinary people being told, in plain English, what is being done to them and what their rights are.

Law and study

Scott is in the final year of an LLB at the University of Law and is preparing for admission as a practising solicitor in England and Wales. Alongside the LLB he is reading postgraduate programmes in AI Law at the University of Oxford and Intellectual Property at Brunel University London. He holds an MSc in Psychology and Neuroscience from King’s College London.

A background in enforceable regulation

Before turning to law, Scott spent close to two decades advising drug-development organisations on the regulatory frameworks designed to protect patients in clinical trials, working with sponsors, contract research organisations and service providers across Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific. The job, simply put, was to make sure the data submitted to regulators, including the FDA, the MHRA and the EMA, is verifiable and stands up to inspection. In that world, compliance is not aspirational; it is the difference between a medicine reaching the public and not reaching the public.

That experience, knowing what enforceable regulation actually looks like, what it costs organisations to comply with, and what it does for the people it is meant to protect, is what he brings to the Foundation. FAIR applies to artificial intelligence the same approach that pharmaceutical regulation has long applied to medicines.

Press, speaking and contact