Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs - UKRI Policy Internship
Type of internship:
UKRI Policy Internship with the Government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
What did the internship involve?
The UKRI Policy Internship scheme is a three-month internship to gain experience on policy making informed by research. I was working on a Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) project. It involved a literature review, data analysis and modelling.
During the placement I worked on modelling a pest distribution to predict its suitability in areas where it is settled and expanding, as well as assessing the risk in the UK. It involved a lot of data acquisition, handling and analysis, modelling techniques and programming skills.
Some of the simulation results can be published as part of a Pest Risk Analysis (PRA). This consists of a process to decide if a pest or pathogen should be regulated, based on scientific or economic evidence. It also identifies ways of control measures against the organism. In addition to this, there is a plan to publish the results as part of a scientific paper.
Laura’s reflections on the internship:
This placement had a lot of benefits for me in both my research and personally. First, I improved my programming skills, learnt new methods and sources of data that could be beneficial in my current research. Second, through different opportunities I had, such as shadowing, I was able to explore different areas within the civil service, for example how priority policies are considered. Finally, I was able to meet amazing people from different backgrounds that helped me so much understanding the work and made me feel welcomed. I feel it was a great experience and I would highly recommend it.
Comments from Laura’s supervisor:
The placement was a complete success. It provided a “break” from research at the right time allowing Laura to return with renewed focus and perspective on her thesis. It helped that the work, while separate from it, used some statistical and programming tools useful to her current research. Laura is as a result more confident about her skills. I certainly recommend it to SAMBa students!
I would absolutely recommend such an experience...to get an understanding of how valuable mathematical research can be in such a diverse set of problem domains
It was a great networking opportunity and a chance to experience what it would be like to work for Roche as a company.
...this placement has built a long-lasting collaboration for me which I believe will be extremely useful if I pursue academia in the future
Doing an internship during my PhD was a great way to learn about opportunities to apply my technical skills to high impact real-life problems in the finance industry and to secure a permanent role in the team I knew I enjoyed working with
My research will benefit from this because I experienced a different and differently organised environment, with other ways (but similar) of working together to achieve the desired goals
I gained insight into what it would be like to have a career in industry. It was great to experience the culture in the offices, and the learn about processes they use to progress research and development projects.
It has been a fun and constructive year...being away from a close supervision for one year helped strengthening my discipline and independence
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
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.
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.
