The York Policy Academy

1. What have you learned in the last year as a Policy Fellow?

The programme exposed participants to a broad range of speakers from academia, government, think tanks, and campaigning organisations, and I appreciated the evident commitment and professionalism of the TYPE team in organising the sessions. I gained a broader overview of how different policy environments operate and how individuals have navigated policy engagement in their own careers. At the same time, I learned that there is a significant difference between hearing about policy engagement and developing practical policy engagement skills. While the programme was presented as an interactive and skills-oriented initiative, much of the delivery relied on presentation-style sessions with relatively limited structured participation or applied training (with the exception of the action learning set).

2. How has your thinking changed?

The experience made me reflect more critically on what meaningful policy engagement training should involve. I entered the programme with the expectation that it would help participants build practical competencies, stronger networks, and more direct forms of engagement with policy environments. Instead, I found that the programme often remained at the level of discussion and reflection rather than applied development. This has reinforced my view that effective policy engagement training needs to move beyond speaker-led sessions and Q&As, and include more practical and tailored activities such as simulations, mentoring, mock policy exercises, collaborative problem-solving, or direct support linked to participants’ career and policy ambitions.

3. What have you done differently in the last 6 months?

The programme encouraged me to think more consciously about how I communicate research to policy audiences and about the importance of positioning research within wider policy debates. I have also reflected more strategically on how I present my expertise in policy-facing contexts. However, I do not feel the programme substantially advanced my practical capacity for policy engagement in the way I had hoped when applying. For example, when I was shortlisted for an Environment Agency interview, I approached TYPE staff seeking more applied support and suggested the possibility of involving a member of the team in a mock interview organised within my department. I was informed that this type of support was outside the programme’s remit. To me, this illustrated a broader limitation of the Academy: opportunities for concrete, practice-based engagement were quite limited despite the programme’s ambitious framing around impact, networking, and skills development.

4. How will you capitalise on your new skills?

I will continue pursuing policy-facing work around climate resilience, environmental governance, and sustainable development, and I remain committed to strengthening the societal relevance of my research. The programme has reinforced the importance of policy communication and interdisciplinary engagement, but it has also clarified the kinds of support and training that I believe are genuinely valuable for researchers seeking to work more closely with policy communities.

Going forward, I will seek more practice-oriented opportunities that provide direct engagement, mentoring, and applied experience, alongside continuing to develop policy-oriented elements within my research and funding applications.

1. What have you learned over the past year as a Policy Fellow?

• Civil servants aren't experts, they get put in a role and learn on the job pretty much like me.
• MPs/civil servants are super busy, the breakdown of a day in the life of an MP was really helpful in seeing tangible examples.
• Even MPs can put 12 months of work into something and it still won't get discussed in Parliament so you have to be realistic and realise that you can put months of work into something and still not achieve the outcome you're looking for, in that case I would be looking at what else have we achieved and what other small wins can we celebrate.
• How UK government works and how to get information in front of policymakers e.g. APPG's etc.
• You need to think about how your message will land with the policymaker and the people they serve, there is no point in asking them to make changes which are completely infeasible.

2. How has your thinking evolved?

• I think I was focused on the 'right way' of engaging with policymakers but now realise that there are many ways and that they develop over time.
• I also now realise the value in having information available in visible, easy to find, useable formats for policymakers, which might look like frameworks etc.
• "Speaking their language" doesn't just mean that you make research findings easy to understand, it means presenting it in terms that can help them take action, e.g. there is value in presenting findings in terms of how much money will this save etc. if you're audience is a finance minister rather than taking about population health needs.
• Identify MP's or groups which have the same interest as you are advocating for, they are more likely to work with you.

3. What have you done differently in the last six months?

• We have used the Story Arc format to highlight research papers in a brochure we recently put together for an Advisory Board meeting.

4. How will you build on your new skills?

• I would like to transform our project website to feature the research findings front and centre.
• We have arranged to work with our in-department communications expert to identify small actions that can increase the visibility of our project with the aim of disseminating research findings further.
• In future projects, I will keep my focus on interpreting the research findings for policymakers and even earlier than that, of establishing a good network of supporters to help us disseminate the findings and advocate for policy change.
• I will keep banging the drum for policy engagement with my academic colleagues and help them to present their findings in ways that policymakers can easily use and understand.