Tag: Funding

Robert Mann – POST Policy Internship
Robert Mann recently undertook a three-month research fellowship with the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST). Here he outlines his experience and why you should consider applying too:

I have recently completed a three-month fellowship at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST), as part of my PhD. This opportunity was made available through the UK Research and Innovation policy internship scheme, supported by the Economic and Social Research Council.

POST is Parliament’s in-house source of independent, balanced and accessible analysis of public-policy issues related to science and technology. As a bicameral office, POST works on behalf of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Having been founded in 1989, POST largely focuses on writing four-page briefings, known as POSTnotes. These briefings are impartial, non-partisan, and peer reviewed. During my fellowship, I was tasked with writing a POSTnote on the topic of ‘non-custodial sentences’.

As my POSTnote is unlikely to be published soon, largely due to the General Election, I thought that I would attempt to convey three reasons why you should consider applying to undertake a fellowship at POST during your PhD:
- You will be forced out of your comfort zone: The process of writing a POSTnote is challenging, in the best possible way. Within three-months, you are required to scope the literature; contact and arrange interviews with topic experts (including academics, third sector organisations and Government departments), condense this information into a POSTnote, before amending this work according to internal and external review comments. The difficult part of this is that your POSTnote topic does not always relate to your PhD research. Therefore, you are required to learn about a new topic and work at a pace that allows you to maintain balance and accuracy in your written work, without feeling too much like an impostor. Although this task can seem somewhat unsurmountable, it reinforces good practice for your PhD work, such as being able to manage a demanding workload and assessing the merits of research evidence.
- You get to work on behalf of Parliament: One of the more obvious reasons to apply for a Fellowship at POST is the opportunity to work on behalf of Parliament. In the first few weeks this will be represented by your unique position of being able to watch political debate, quench your thirst at one of the Palace of Westminster bars, and start playing a game of MP “I Spy”. Most POST Fellows try to arrange a meeting with their local MP during their time in Westminster too. As shown in the photo, I was able to meet Ben Bradshaw (MP for Exeter) at Portcullis House. Alongside this access, working on behalf of Parliament comes with the responsibility of making sure that the POSTnote is fully representative of the given topic area. As the initial target audience of a POSTnote is MPs and Peers, you need to be confident that the experts that were interviewed largely support the final document and agree that it as an accurate portrayal of the topic area. Much like having to respond to reviewer comments when submitting a journal article, the POSTnote is subject to peer-review from the majority of these experts. Therefore, amending the POSTnote according to this review process is the most demanding elements of the Fellowship. Regardless, it definitely improves the final output and develops your ability to maintain an impartial writing style.
- Your output sits at the interface between research and policy: As a PhD student, it is typical to become academically pigeonholed. After three or four years of very specific research, you hope to come out the other side of the process with research that can be used to inform policy and develop other types of research impact. On the contrary, undertaking an internship at POST allows you to work directly at the interface between research and policy. The output of which – the POSTnote – is used to inform political debate around the topic, potentially leading to policy changes. Due to the way that topics are chosen by POST (i.e. decided by a committee that includes members of both the House of Commons and House of Lords), the work that you conduct will always be of current interest to MPs and Peers. This can either be in response to certain events, such as the recent rise in knife crime, or more of a ‘horizon scanning’ activity, such as identifying the potential challenges of an increased use of wind power in the UK. This puts you in a unique position and one that teaches you a lot about how Parliament and Government uses research to influence its policy agenda. In turn, this experience can be used to develop your own knowledge about how to best use your PhD research to inform the research-policy interface.
I hope that these points have given some insight into my time at POST and encourage you to apply too. While my time at POST was demanding, it was also nothing but rewarding. If you are considering applying yourself, don’t hesitate to get in contact with me.

Robert Mann is a SWDTP Health and Wellbeing PhD candidate at the University of Exeter. You can read more about his research on our Health and Wellbeing Student Profile page.
January 9, 2020
Alisha Tuladhar Placement- The Innovation Beehive

Back in the summer, Alisha Tuladhar had the opportunity to undertake a placement with The Innovation Beehive, a consultancy firm based in Cirencester. We asked Alisha a few questions about her placement and what she gained from it:

Please give a summary of the placement and the work/activities you undertook.

“My placement at The Innovation Beehive comprised of a range of activities. I attended various workshops, talks and presentations both internally and externally with the firms’ clients, for example: Two-days-Innovation Bootcamp Workshop at a client’s Head-Office in London, also had the opportunity to attend the Retail Week at Gloucester, attended several networking sessions in the Growth Hub and was part of the community on site.”

Did the placement meet your original objectives and expectations? What were the tangible outputs or outcomes? Where there any unexpected outcomes or opportunities arising from the placement?

“Yes, the placement met my original objectives and expectations. I initially had two major expectations: assisting the Consultant Head, on projects and using my research skills to help with the firms’ activities. I had expected my main job to be understanding the clients’ needs, analyse them and propose solutions that are customer-centric, technologically feasible and economically sound.

These expectations were not only met, but in fact, surpassed. Since I was not only involved in client facing projects but also in the development of an internal training material for a large multi-national firm, it was a humbling experience for me to be working amongst an extremely knowledgeable team of consultants. This allowed me to gain an insight on how training materials were created and eventually enrolled in large MNCs.

Moreover, again unexpectedly, I also got the opportunity to go to various events: some in London, some in Gloucester and was also invited to the Polo Club for a team outing. They were all tremendously valuable networking experiences.”

How has the placement developed your insight into working with non-academic partners and the benefits and/or challenges of collaboration?

“Indeed, there are a few differences whilst working with a non-academic partner. The first major difference was that the non-academic sector works in a pragmatic manner and is highly outcome-driven, rather than novelty-driven. In a PhD, we are often seeking for contribution to knowledge or are often
truth-driven. Whereas, in a non-academic setting, it is more about outcomes and getting things done, rather than spending too much time on the foundational knowledge/ literature review.

Second difference was the fact that there was very limited time allocated for research tasks. I think whilst doing a PhD or writing papers, the research component is lengthy and a time-consuming process, however with non-academic partners, the deadlines are stricter and tighter. There isn’t much time allocated for a deep-dive research. One needs to be extremely fast and proficient at their tasks.

And the final difference is the number of stakeholders present. I personally felt that whilst doing a PhD, its more about your supervisory team, which would be around 2-3, however, whilst during the placement, I was working with a larger team and had a lot of different moving parts. For example, in order to organize one event, there are clients, printing presses, designers, website, marketing communications hence it is more of a team effort with a smooth communication requirement. I personally found that in a PhD there aren’t too many stakeholders.”

Has the experience of doing the placement made you think about the potential or the impact of your research differently? If so, how?

“My experience at The Innovation Beehive has definitely shaped my thinking to be more wary of how my research might be applied, what value it brings to UK businesses. More specifically, I have realised that
there is a lot of good research being done and published in Management Journals, however not many are read or known to business executives. I think the way forward needs to be more inclusive whereby the government, academia and businesses not only have access to research but also are conversing and sharing knowledge with each other. One way to ensure research impact is to publish in Open- Journals perhaps, this is something I personally will aim to do.”

Are there opportunities for further collaboration with the organisation either for yourself, or for other students, in the future?

“Yes, I think The Innovation Beehive team and founder, Mok, is very supportive towards students and the academic sector.
In fact, Joe, the Innovation Director of the firm has already come to the University twice to record three academics for their Podcast. Hence, I think there is definitely more room for collaboration.”

What advice would you give to a fellow student who is considering undertaking a placement?

“My advice to a fellow placement student would be “listen, learn and be proactive”. I truly believe in the salience of being curious, asking the right questions, and making sure you are gaining the most of everything that your placement has to offer. Placement is a great opportunity to learn but you will only learn once you ask. So be courageous, be proactive and do your best.”

November 21, 2019
Alison Pearson- Cohort Building Fund

Shut up and write sessions at St Luke’s, 2019

As a PGR at the St Luke’s campus at the University of Exeter I had noticed that not many events and activities happen here – if you are lucky you bump into a colleague in the café or library, but it can leave you feeling a bit isolated.

When I heard about the SWDTP Cohort Building fund I thought this might be the ideal way of getting something off the ground here – I know that people are busy, so I thought it would be good to find a way of combining social support with getting some work done. By chance I had recently heard about the “shut up and write” concept via some online communities, and so put forward a proposal to the SWDTP to fund a series of “shut up and write” events – the idea being to use the funding for refreshments to have at the end of the sessions to encourage people to stay on and develop those important informal social networks.

With great thanks to the SWDTP for their support we managed to run a total of 23 sessions – and to have an event most weeks between January and July. The sessions evolved over this time – we found that the format that we liked the best was to have 3 writing bursts of 25 minutes each (with very short comfort breaks in between) and then to finish with coffee and cake. We had enough budget to finish with lunch every few weeks which added to the social feel and encouraged lots of productive writing – and good attendance!

The only challenges really were working out how to order catering and getting a budget code set up, and deciding how best to promote the events. This was easily solved by setting up the events on Eventbrite and asking for these links to be included on internal emails and newsletters both at Exeter and through the SWDTP. Our biggest event was our first lunch, with 16 people: most weeks we had 8-10 people and it was great to get to know people at different stages of their PGR journeys and from different subject disciplines.

There is something about writing in the company of others than creates a focussed and disciplined approach to your writing, as expressed by some of the attendees:

“ I really appreciate these sessions because they help me focus on my writing. Additionally working in a quiet environment helps me produce good quality pieces of writing. It’s good to set a goal and then come to these sessions and achieve it!”

“The shut up and write sessions have been great for me. I am a part time PhD researcher and spend most of my time at home working on my own. I find the sessions helpful in bringing a focus to my work – both while I’m in the room and also in advance in getting something ready to write. Also great to have some social contact and to share some of the stresses of PhD life. Really useful focussed and purposeful atmosphere.”

“I have found these sessions invaluable for providing protective time for writing as well as peer support. Its really helpful to timetable/ provide structure for my week. The refreshments have supported networking. I have made huge amounts of progress by using these groups.”

Thank you SWDTP for your support,

Alison Pearson

Year 2 PhD Student (University of Exeter)

November 21, 2019
Tom Arthur OIV- Edmonton, Canada

After being awarded Overseas Institutional Visit funding, I was afforded the opportunity to work at the Action in Complex Environments Laboratory (ACELab) at the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada).

With my PhD project looking at movement-related difficulties in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), much of my research involves examining how different sensorimotor networks (e.g., the brain, visual and motor systems) link together during actions. Such investigation demands the use of innovative scientific equipment, such as mobile eye-tracking and motion capture technology.

Therefore, I teamed up with the world-leading researchers at ACELab, who specialise in developing novel measurement tools and movement analysis techniques. Here, through collaborating with experts in kinesiology, neuroscience, psychology and computer science, I was able to explore and experiment with new, innovative analysis methods that could be employed in my research protocols. Looking forward, I will continue to collaborate with ACELab in his upcoming studies, where I will look to apply these new movement analysis tools into my novel and noteworthy line of interdisciplinary research.

However, my trip to Canada was not confined to methodological development purposes. Instead, the visit allowed me to discuss ideas and share my own project with a wider international audience. Specifically, in addition to my collaborative efforts at ACELab, I was able to visit the Centre for Vision Research (University of Toronto, Ontario) and the Bionic Limbs for Improved Natural Control Lab (Division of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Alberta), who both offered valuable insight from their own interdisciplinary domains.

Furthermore, I was able to disseminate findings from my own research, through presenting preliminary PhD work at a Canadian Association for Neuroscience satellite symposium and at the International Conference of Predictive Vision. It is hoped that the diverse range of discussions and networking experiences obtained on this trip will propel me towards exciting collaboration opportunities in the future, both during my PhD and beyond.

Overall, my research trip in Canada was a perfect balance of networking, skill development and travelling experiences. I could not recommend it enough to other students considering their own international collaboration opportunities.

Tom Arthur
Health and Wellbeing, University of Exeter

For more information on OIV funding, download our OIV Guidance notes

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August 14, 2019