Laura Bea

Laura is the Head of Membership and Network Development (part time) for the Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN). She’s responsible for creating and delivering on our Member Engagement Strategy with you, our members and partners. You can get in touch with Laura if you’re a member with any enquiries about what UPEN offers, how to get involved in our activities, or for any ideas you’d like to put forward for our programmes commissioning funds. Or, if you’d like to join as a new member of our Network.  

Alongside this, she is also co-Chair and co-creator of the Arts and Humanities Sub-Committee, and co-chair of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Sub Committee (UPEN), and has produced work on how knowledge brokerage can embed EDI activities to support more diverse people and knowledges engaged in policymaking.  

Outside of this role, they are conducting a PhD at the University of Southampton on the role of fiction as a form of knowledge and evidence within public policy making, funded by the Southcoast Doctoral Training Partnership, Economic and Social Science Research Council (SCDTP ESRC).  

Laura enjoys reading fiction, knitting, and learning Punjabi outside of work; she is a big Lord of the Rings fan and will always welcome disruptions to meetings in the forms of fluffy household pets (excluding spiders).