BU Research Blog

The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) is inviting expressions of interest for its Parliamentary Academic Fellowship Scheme from Monday 8 June.

Securing a prestigious fellowship with POST provides researchers with unique access to Parliament, policy experience and direct potential for impact. It is open to all employed academics with a PhD, and applicants propose their own project for Parliament to conduct. These projects might include contributing to the work of a parliamentary office, filling gaps in expertise, helping to grow Parliament’s academic networks, informing parliamentary scrutiny, analysing and evaluating parliamentary practices, building staff capacity and skills, providing advice and support to a committee, scrutinising a specific area of government policy, providing briefing material or advice, generating data to facilitate effective scrutiny, writing specific papers for parliamentary teams, studying aspects of the parliamentary process or perceptions of that process, or something else!

There is no external funding associated with these fellowships, and the cost will need to be met either by BU internally or by other research funders. The types of cost the fellowship will entail are: cover arrangements, travel, subsistence and accommodation alongside consideration of your time. Do not let concern over costs or other factors hold you back at this stage. Parliament have a keen diversity agenda and applications from all career stages (from PhD onwards) and other equality characteristics are welcomed – you do not have to be a professor!

The fellowship will usually last for 1 year; there may be flexibility over the start date (and this may help to save or manage costs). Fellows will spend some of their time in Westminster and some aspects will be completed remotely. The amount of time spent in Westminster will be dictated by the nature of your project. It could be one day per week, or a week block every six weeks, or another pattern.

Expression of Interest applications will be invited from Monday 8 June, when more information about the scheme, what to cover in your expression of interest, and a list of the parliamentary offices participating will be released by POST. The closing date is Friday 26 June 2020. We will update this blog with the new details once they are released.

Process

• Now: Inform your Faculty Dean or Deputy Dean , that you are interested in applying
• June: Complete the expression of interest and forward before the 26 June deadline, and discuss potential sources of funding with your faculty leadership
• September: Submit detailed application for the fellowship which will also confirm BU budget approval
• Oct/Nov: Interview
• If selected – complete security clearance, complete Fellowship Agreement
• Jan 2021 – commence Fellowship

The BU Policy team and your faculty impact officer are available for guidance, support and to track your application.

Click here for full details from POST, as well as testimonials from previous fellows.

This is also an informative and useful document – it contains some examples of projects successful Fellows undertook and the evaluation of the whole scheme including what needs improvement.