Key points
- From September 2026 every University of Surrey degree will include discipline-specific AI teaching, from foundation year to postgraduate level.
- Creative practice is named alongside engineering, law, business and clinical disciplines as areas where core competencies will be preserved.
- Assessment is being redesigned institution-wide around process, decision-making and applied problem-solving rather than outputs.
Summary
Announced 27 April 2026 and attributed to Professor Annika Bautz, the University of Surrey's initiative embeds discipline-specific AI teaching across every degree from September 2026. Creative practice disciplines are explicitly named among those receiving tailored AI curricula, and assessment is being redesigned institution-wide around process and problem-solving rather than outputs alone. The announcement represents the institution-wide-mandate model for AI curriculum integration, in contrast to SCAD's specialist-degree model, and provides an important comparator for animation and creative-arts programs considering their own approaches.
Implications for animation education
The Surrey model is operationally significant for animation programs as an example of institution-wide curriculum redesign that explicitly preserves discipline-specific practice alongside AI integration. The assessment redesign around process and decision-making rather than outputs is particularly relevant: animation programs have long used process-based assessment, and the Surrey approach validates and extends that model as an AI-era design choice. Programs at other institutions can use Surrey's public announcement as an argument for similar approaches in their own curriculum review processes. Note that no separate policy document exists behind the Surrey announcement; the announcement is the operative text.
Related items
Source
Source: University of Surrey ↗ (Other)
Primary document: surrey.ac.uk/news/ai-be-embedded-discipline-specific-ways-every-university-surrey-degree-september-2026-training ↗
Cite this item
University of Surrey (2026). ‘University of Surrey: AI embedded in every degree from September 2026’, University of Surrey. Available at: https://www.surrey.ac.uk/news/ai-be-embedded-discipline-specific-ways-every-university-surrey-degree-september-2026-training
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