What do PhD’s think about our placement?

Enabling PhD placement students to take positive learning experiences from our placement scheme is really important to us. We’ve evolved the scheme since 2016 to ensure that participants get first hand experience of working on real government projects, as well as transferable skills they can take back to their life in academia.

Ophila Chidgy, Lancaster University and Kevin Wang, University of Oxford

Freyja McCreery, University of York

The experience of some people doing internships elsewhere is that they end up doing tedious administrative jobs that do little to contribute to your CV. This is certainly not the case with the Open Innovation Team. I was treated as any other member of staff would be. This setup allowed me to develop my skills and enhance my CV as any full-time member of the civil service would.

Amelia Watkins-Smith, University of Nottingham

My understanding of the ways academic research can impact policy has developed significantly during the placement. I was able to attend training for academics on this topic, and contribute to bespoke ‘impact advice clinics’. I hope to use this new knowledge to facilitate impact from my own PhD research.

Zaynab Seedat, University of York

I wanted to say a thank you to all of the team, even those who I haven’t met properly, for making me feel so welcome, especially working online! The team culture has been so fun and relaxed, but at the same time hardworking and absolutely on it. It’s been such a pleasure to see people who are so great at what they do and who are so passionate even when it comes to difficult projects and clients.

Adam Meylan-Stevenson, University of Southhampton

I would recommend the OIT placement to any student wanting to get experience with collaborative project work. It’s not necessary to have an interest in policy. The experience of time-bound, collaborative project work is greatly rewarding. If you’re planning on an academic career, the placement is a good way to get experience of policy to better understand how academic research can be made useful and usable.

Oluwatosin Adebola-Akande, University of Essex

In academia, I’m used to spending months gathering evidence before producing research outputs, but the turnover time is quick here, which means you work on producing parts of a report very quickly. I particularly enjoyed the process of working on a project outside my research field and adapting the broader research and analytical skills I’ve acquired on my PhD, into decision-making.

Ruben McNeil Walsh, UWE Bristol

The PhD placement scheme with the OIT is a fantastic opportunity. From my first day, I was heavily involved with policy projects, getting to see first hand how academic evidence can contribute to decision making in government, whilst learning from experienced officials. I was delighted to stay on with the OIT and I now work part time as a Policy Advisor alongside finishing my PhD. The placement has proved to be an invaluable opportunity in helping me progress my career in policy.

James Waddell, UCL

I have always had an interest in policy, but with my humanities PhD, I wasn’t sure how to forge a path into the civil service. On the OIT placement, I was able to apply my research skills and experience of academia to real-world issues, in a really diverse and interesting set of policy areas from youth violence to AI. The support, training and mentorship that I received put me in a position where I was able to successfully apply for a Policy Advisor role on the team, which I’m now doing part-time while I write up my thesis.