Last term I took a break from folding proteins to spend three months working in Westminster at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST).
The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Policy Internships Scheme gives PhD students the opportunity to spend three months in a range of policy-relevant organisations, from Government departments to the Royal Society. Applications are open to research council funded PhD students (currently including EU students). The scheme includes a three-month stipend extension, and travel/accommodation expenses are covered either by the host partner or the training grant holder.
POST acts as a bridge between research and policy-making in UK Parliament. The latest evidence and research is distilled into balanced, concise, and accessible POSTnotes and POSTbriefs, which support MPs and Peers in making laws and scrutinising Government.
My role at POST was to research and produce a POSTnote on the Cyber Security of Consumer Devices. The POSTnote was informed by extensive literature review and interviews with relevant stakeholders from Government, industry, academia, NGOs and learned societies. Typically, the interviewing and peer review process involves around 30 experts. Writing POSTnotes is a very collaborative process, and I learnt a great deal from my POST colleagues about researching and writing from a policy perspective.
During my Fellowship, I also spent time helping out with POST events in Parliament (though I sadly just missed the POST Annual Reception with David Attenborough). I also got to have lunch in Portcullis House; watch debates in the House of Lords; witness fights about Brexit in PMQs; search for suffragette history in the Palace*; watched New Year fireworks from the Palace terrace; and asked for directions from countless armed security guards as I got lost regularly.
If you are interested in science policy or science communication, I highly recommend applying to this scheme; it was an incredible learning opportunity and I enjoyed every minute of it.
*A cupboard where Emily Wilding Davison hid the night before the 1911 election so that she could record her address as “the House of Commons”, and a statue with a spur missing since a suffragette chained herself to it in 1908. There was also an excellent “Voice & Vote: Women’s Place in Parliament” exhibition, which focussed on the spaces occupied by women in Parliament. This included “the Ventilator” in the Palace loft, where women secretly watched Parliament proceedings, the Women’s Gallery (known as “the Cage”) that replaced it after Parliament was destroyed in a fire in 1834, and “the Tomb”, and the Lady Members’ office, a single office shared by all women MPs after they were allowed to stand for election from 1918.
