Fellowships in Focus: How UCL is shaping policy through collaboration

For well over a decade UCL Public Policy has made Policy Fellowships a cornerstone of its policy engagement programme. By partnering with government departments, local authorities, and think tanks, we have facilitated secondments for over 100 academics and researchers into policy organisations, allowing them to apply their expertise and skills to inform and improve how evidence shapes policy.

With new funding from the Quality Related Policy Support Fund in 2020, we have been able to expand our programme, experimenting with new Fellowship models. One such approach involves cohort schemes, where three or more Fellows are seconded into the same organisation simultaneously, each working on distinct projects. The first time this was piloted was in 2022 when UCL Public Policy and UCL Health of the Public launched a Researchers-in-Residence scheme with the Office of Health Improvements and Disparities (OHID). Researchers worked on some of OHID’s key policy issues producing outputs such as reports, academic articles, and animations. Researchers were also able to convene multiple policy partners to raise awareness of their policy issues and have since gone on to present their findings to local authorities and health trusts.

The second organisation with whom we tested this model was Newham Council. Earlier this year, three Fellows were placed with different teams including Health Literacy, Research and Inclusion and Health Inequalities. Two Fellows have produced reports with recommendations for Newham Council while another has produced a web-based tool which the Health Literacy team can use to collate more evidence.

In 2024, we are about to begin the third year of this scheme, this time in collaboration with OHID and the Greater London Authority’s Public Health Unit. The cohort of Fellows will span the two organisations, working on policy projects that will inform each other’s work. This introduces a new experimental aspect to the fellowship model: investigating how fellows navigate cross-departmental collaboration and partnerships in addressing London-based health inequalities.

Through these schemes, we've learned that while knowledge exchange and placing researchers in new environments can bring challenges—project delays, accessing data, pauses due to dissolution period—they also foster a deeper understanding of how academics and policy organisations can collaborate more effectively. Speaking to both policy host supervisors and Fellows has revealed not only the differences but also the similarities between academia and government or local authorities and therefore helped build mutual understanding of how each party approach policy issues and evidence.

Furthermore, having several fellows in one organisation highlighted the diversity of experiences across policy areas and teams, reinforcing the argument that a single approach to academic policy engagement does not fit all situations. The policy issues at hand, the available evidence and the networks involved all influence the types of conversations, outcomes and outputs a fellowship may produce.

Indeed, what might initially appear a daunting challenge or a clash of perspectives can, with resilience and effective negotiation, lead to a deeper mutual understanding of the processes and systems used by both research and policy professionals. This, in turn, can foster a more productive and synergistic relationship, enhancing how these fields can collaboratively inform and support one another in the long term.

The cohort model offers opportunities for Fellows and supervisors to come together, share their learning, and celebrates milestones. For each scheme, we have organised both a launch and wrap-up event for Fellows and their supervisors. These events have been important not only for fellows but also for me, as the Fellowship Coordinator. They have allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of how the organisations operate, identify what went well and what could be improved, and build ongoing relationships with both the Fellows and their supervisors. This in turn, supports better integration between the policy organisations, UCL and the researchers.

Flexibility, openness, and mutual understanding from all parties have proven essential in overcoming any hurdles and building stronger partnerships between policy organisations and the research community. These insights were also highlighted in a recent review of the CAPE research-to-policy fellowships. By interviewing Fellows and supervisors, we identified common themes that contributed to successful collaborations. From this, we established six key pillars [PDF] that, when implemented, can create a strong foundation for increasing the likelihood of success.

How to apply

Applications are now open for UCL's Researchers-in-Residence scheme with the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities London (OHIDL) and the Greater London Authority Public Health Unit (GLA). Learn more and apply va the Researchers in Residence Scheme UCL.

LRaPP are keen to broker policy fellowships embedded within London's policy organisations. If you are interested, please contact Aiysha Qureshi.