Following on in Clare’s footsteps, I similarly took a three-month break from proteins and small molecules to work in the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST). While at POST, I researched the impact of AI on employment in the UK, covering AI adoption, job creation and loss, and effects on working conditions. You can read our literature review here. Many thanks to Lydia, who was an amazing supervisor while I was at POST.
The group asked me if I would tell them a little bit about one of my other hats at our regular Tuesday meeting, and this blog is about that.
In October 2019 I was seconded part-time to UKRI as the Deputy Executive Chair of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research council (EPSRC). What is UKRI (UK research and Innovation)? It’s a non-departmental public body that funds research and innovation. It is made up of the seven disciplinary research councils (acronyms to please Tom – AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, NERC, STFC and MRC), Research England, and the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK.
As Deputy Executive Chair of EPSRC I was helping with UKRI strategy, learning how a spending review round works, visiting universities to talk about how they could work better with UKRI – pretty much everything I was expecting to be doing. But like everyone, my world changed in early 2020.
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