UK Health Security Agency
Type of internship:
Secondment with the UK Health Security Agency
What did the internship involve?
I joined the UKHSA (formerly JBC) from March 22nd 2021 to March 31st 2022, during that time I worked within the Regional team, which was then merged into Regions and Sectors before ending up as the Thematic team.
Whilst there I worked on many topics, both close to the policy side and very far from the policy side. A few key highlights would be the creation of a tool utilising clustering algorithms which investigated regional heterogeneity within the country to identify outlying areas, a simple probabilistic model designed to identify risky settings, taking ownership of a specific metric and extending it to produce new outputs sent as part of a regular package to the Cabinet Office Task force. As well as many others. During my secondment I led on the production of 3 internal government reports highlighting results of my analysis and supported many other reports.
Jason’s reflections on the internship:
This secondment has given me the opportunity to widen my non-academic network as well as establishing new academic contacts. Through the placement I was invited to a weekly meeting with the Turing institute where I was afforded the opportunity to present my work and receive feedback. Beyond this I was also able to present to broader government colleagues on multiple occasions, sometimes presenting to an audience of over 100 people. Through the placement I have significantly developed the skills needed to be a data scientist, both supplementary tools such as git, and core skills such as data analysis, visualisation, and coding best practises. These skills will be valuable both during my PhD and beyond. During my secondment I received 2 peer-nominated “In Year Awards” for my contributions to the team and organisation, both as an analyst and as a colleague. Beyond this there are plans to convert some of the work I was finishing up towards the end of the placement into a short journal article, though the details are yet to be finalised.
Overall, I really enjoyed my secondment and would highly recommend them to anyone considering one. The opportunity to work in a fast paced, collaborative environment taught me a lot about both the internal workings of government and about best practises working in an agile environment. As far as advice goes for students considering a placement / secondment I would strongly encourage discussing ITTs they have attended, beyond this ensuring to touch base with their supervisors (and occasionally retouch some of their PhD work on a quiet day) to ensure the transition back afterwards is smooth.
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I highly recommend the internship to PhD students who are curious about research impact and policy and who are looking to gain work experience beyond academia and industry.
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...this placement has built a long-lasting collaboration for me which I believe will be extremely useful if I pursue academia in the future
The opportunity to work in an interdisciplinary team where I was communicating my work to people from different departments was invaluable for my work beyond my PhD