Catherine Régis
Director of Social Innovation and International Policy
Catherine Régis is a full professor at the Faculty of Law of Université de Montréal (UdeM) and co-director of the Canadian Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Institute Research Program at CIFAR. Prior to joining IVADO’s management team in January 2024, she assumed the role of UdeM’s Associate Vice-Rector for Strategic Planning and Responsible Digital Innovation (2021-2023). In addition to holding a Canada CIFAR Chair in AI and an International Chair on Science Diplomacy and the Global Governance of AI, she is, among others, an Associate Academic Member at Mila – Québec AI Institute; a researcher at the Public Law Research Center (CRDP), the Montreal Centre for International Studies (CERIUM) and Maison des affaires publiques et internationales; the director of Health Hub – Policy, Organizations and Law (H-Pod); as well as an Intellectual Forum Senior Research Associate at Jesus College in the University of Cambridge.
She is very active on the international scene. In 2022, she was appointed cochair of the Working Group on Responsible AI of the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI), which comprises 29 member states (including Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan and the USA) for a period of two years. From 2020 to 2024, she led the Working Group on Responsible Digital Innovation and AI of the U7+ Alliance, which includes more than 50 universities from around the world. In 2022, she was a selected Fellow for the UN’s Institute for Training and Research’s program (UNITAR) in Science Diplomacy and, since 2024, she has served on the Technical Committee for UNESCO’s AI and the Rule of Law Program. In 2025, she was a member of the Artificial Intelligence Advisory Group on Elections from the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as well as the G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council under the Government of Canada.
Among her recent scientific contributions at IVADO, the following are particularly noteworthy:
- AI in the Ballot Box: Four Actions to Safeguard Election Integrity and Uphold Democracy (multilingual global policy brief, IVADO and AI + Society Initiative, 2025);
- Governing with AI: Four Actions to Build a Transformative and Resilient Public Administration (multilingual global policy brief, IVADO and AI + Society Initiative 2026);
- Proposed Code of Conduct for the Use of AI by Political Parties (IVADO, 2025), which proposes a framework for the responsible use of AI by Quebec political parties ahead of the upcoming elections; it received notable media coverage, including in La Presse (March 21, 2026);
- From AI Research Leader to AI Startup Nation : Canada’s Next Challenge (first chapter of the thematic series for policy-makers titled “Canada’s AI Future: Harnessing Strengths, Addressing Gaps and Charting a Path Forward”, IVADO, CIFAR and CEIMIA, 2025);
- Artificial Intelligence Serving Municipalities (practical guide, IVADO and Future Earth, 2025).
In parallel with this work, her independent research has resulted in several recent publications, including the article High-Reward, High-Risk Technologies? An Ethical and Legal Account of AI Development in Healthcare (BMC Medical Ethics, 2025), the policy paper The Development of the UN Scientific Panel on AI (Mila, 2025), as well as two books: Human-Centered AI: a Multidisciplinary Perspective for Policy-Makers, Auditors and Users (Routledge & CRC Press 2024), ranked among Taylor & Francis’s 10 must-read books on AI, and Missing Links in AI Governance (UNESCO Press, 2023).
She has presented her work at institutions such as the OECD, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, the Alan Turing Institute, the Supreme Court of Canada, The Wall Street Journal, and the Aspen Ministers Forum; in more than 20 universities worldwide (e.g., Costa Rica, Edinburgh, Georgetown, Osaka, Oxford, Sciences Po Paris, Sorbonne, Toronto); and in high-level conferences, including the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in 2023 and NeurIPS. She is involved in the development of Science diplomacy (which aims at building leadership and communication skills to bridge science and diplomacy in policymaking) at the national and international levels.