MiSoC policy fellowships – bringing government researchers into work alongside MiSoC’s experts to investigate key evidence gaps to support better policy making – are continuing for a second term, after a successful pilot programme in partnership with HM Government Open Innovation Team.
The first three policy fellowships were:
Vasileios Antonopoulos, an Economic Advisor in the Race Disparity Unit worked with Professor Renee Luthra and MiSoC Research Assistant Jonas Kaufman to research a number of action points detailed in Inclusive Britain, the government’s response to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. His analysis summary, was published in April 2023 as part of a package of updates, a year after the publication of Inclusive Britain.
Peter Jelfs, Head of Tax, Investment Directorate, Department for Business and Trade, worked with Dr Angus Holford to investigate labour market contributions of UK and foreign-born PhD holders, and the implications for visa, immigration and tax policy, Read our MiSoC Explainer summarising their findings here.
Sam Denson, Health Economist with the UK Health Security Agency has worked with Dr Paul Fisher, supported by ISER PhD student Steven Haworth, to look at existing evidence about the impact of the cost of living crisis on mental and physical health inequalities with a view to informing a White Paper on Health Inequalities which is in preparation.
The MiSoC Policy Fellow scheme was devised as a mechanism to share MiSoC’s expertise in policy-relevant research and analysis of large data sets, with individual government researchers working in a similar area. MiSoC partnered with the UK Government’s Open Innovation Team to identify and match researchers in government departments with academics.
The MiSoC Policy Fellow Scheme provides academic mentoring and reasearch assistance and MiSoC plans to extend its support to other non-government organisations wih researchers looking at policy issues, such as thinktanks and the third sector.