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Dr. Shafik, who came under fire for her handling of pro-Palestinian campus protests last year, is now the chief economic adviser to Britain’s prime minister.
Sept. 3, 2025, 12:01 a.m. ET
When Nemat Shafik resigned as president of Columbia University in August 2024 to take on an assignment for the British foreign secretary, it seemed as if Britain was giving her a refuge: She had struggled to handle pro-Palestinian protests that were threatening to tear apart the Ivy League campus.
Now, the British government has recruited Dr. Shafik for a permanent post — as the chief economic adviser to Prime Minister Keir Starmer — and it promises to thrust her back into a political vortex, though of a very different kind.
Dr. Shafik, an Oxford-trained economist who goes by the name Minouche, will be charged with helping devise policies to reignite Britain’s economic growth and dig the government out of a deep fiscal hole. Her immediate task is to aid in drafting the next government budget, which is widely seen as a litmus test for Mr. Starmer, after a trouble-prone first year that has left him deeply unpopular.
“She’s moving into a very complex environment, with a U.K. political environment that is changing very rapidly,” said Tony Travers, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics, where Dr. Shafik served as president and vice chancellor before Columbia recruited her in 2023.
Professor Travers, who knew Dr. Shafik at the L.S.E. and praised her tenure there, predicted she would face a pressure-cooker atmosphere in 10 Downing Street, as well as the challenge of dealing with the Treasury, a powerful ministry that is jealous of its authority and resistant to outside influence.
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