Justin Trudeau is going to Oxford.
The university’s Blavatnik School of Government announced Friday, Nov. 6 that Canada’s former prime minister has joined as a Distinguished Fellow and a member of its World Leaders Circle. He will visit the school later in November.
It is the first conventional post-politics appointment Trudeau has taken since he left office in March 2025, and it puts him in a small group of former leaders the school draws on to teach the people who will run governments next.
What a Distinguished Fellow does
Not much that looks like a job, in the usual sense.
The World Leaders Circle is a network of former heads of government. Oxford’s announcement for Jacinda Ardern, who joined in March 2025, describes it as a three-year affiliation with an annual gathering at Oxford. Members feed their experience into the school’s research and teaching, meet with students, and take part in forums and workshops.
There is no course to run. Trudeau’s announcement does not mention pay, a timetable, or any requirement to live in England. The one commitment Oxford has put on the record is his visit this month.
“In the decade that I was Prime Minister, the world went through profound change both geopolitically and technologically,” Trudeau said. “The challenges faced by governments across the globe demand thoughtful leadership, international cooperation, and a renewed commitment to public trust.”
Ngaire Woods, the school’s dean, said students “can learn from leaders who have worked through the complexities of government.”
Who else is in the room
Trudeau is the fifth former leader publicly named to the Circle in under two years.
Rishi Sunak was first, on Jan. 22, 2025, six months after losing the U.K. election. He took a visiting fellowship at Stanford’s Hoover Institution at the same time. Jacinda Ardern followed in March 2025, two years after she resigned as New Zealand’s prime minister. Fumio Kishida, who led Japan from 2021 to 2024, was added Oct. 19. Oxford also lists former Colombian president Iván Duque.
Between them, the five governed four G7 or G20 countries and one of the world’s most-watched small democracies. Three of them, Trudeau, Sunak and Ardern, left office with approval ratings well below where they started. That is part of what the school is buying: not just the wins, but the people who were in the room when things went wrong.
What the Blavatnik School is
Oxford founded the school in 2010 with a gift from Len Blavatnik, the Ukrainian-born billionaire. Its first Master of Public Policy class arrived in 2012. The one-year program takes students from 50 to 70 countries a year and sends many of them straight into civil services, ministries and international agencies. It also runs executive programs for sitting senior officials.
Meeting former leaders is built into the curriculum. The Circle makes that a standing arrangement rather than a one-off guest lecture.
Trudeau’s other new venture
The Oxford appointment lands eight weeks after Trudeau showed up at the Toronto International Film Festival to launch Hope & Hard Work, a production company he started with Katie Telford, his chief of staff for all nine years he was in office.
The company says it will make film, television, audio and live events. The first slate, all in development with no dates announced:
Closer by Sea, adapted from Perry Chafe’s Newfoundland coming-of-age novel.
Detective Aunty, from Uzma Jalaluddin’s mystery novel, with Trudeau and Telford as executive producers.
Le Collège, an original series by North of North writers Jessie Gabe and Shebli Zarghami, about two best friends at an elite Montreal private school.
Backchannels, a working-title series about a new chief of staff learning how power actually works.
The last one will be read as autobiographical whether or not it is meant to be.
How he got here
Trudeau announced on Jan. 6, 2025 that he would step down once the Liberals picked a new leader. He formally resigned at Rideau Hall on March 14, minutes before Mark Carney was sworn in. He did not run in the April election, ending 17 years as the MP for Papineau.
Since then he has given a handful of speeches abroad, including at the SuomiAreena festival in Finland in June, and otherwise stayed out of Canadian politics. Oxford is the first time he has attached his name to an institution rather than a project.
For Albertans, the name still carries a decade of arguments over the carbon tax, the emissions cap and pipeline approvals. None of that is on the Oxford syllabus. But the students who will shape energy and climate policy in dozens of countries over the next 20 years will now hear the Canadian version from the man who wrote it.
Sources:
Blavatnik School: Dame Jacinda Ardern to join World Leaders Circle (March 25, 2025)
University of Oxford: Rishi Sunak to join World Leaders Circle (Jan. 22, 2025)
Blavatnik School: Fumio Kishida to join World Leaders Circle (Oct. 19, 2026)
Governor General of Canada: Swearing-in ceremony, March 14, 2025
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