What’s your role within UPEN and what do you do?
I’m Head of Knowledge Mobilisation (Place) for UPEN, based at the University of Leeds. I’ll be working with a team across Leeds, Birmingham, Teesside and Nottingham Trent with a focus on place in academic-policy engagement. The place programme will develop a network of sub national academic policy engagement initiatives, explore evidence needs and forms of knowledge in different places and pilot new forms of sub national academic policy engagement infrastructure. I’m excited to be working closely with UPEN members again!
Tell us what you did before UPEN or what you do alongside your UPEN role?
It feels like I’ve come full circle! I joined UPEN back in 2019 as the Network Manager, back when Nottingham and Stephen Meek were chair – taking on the pioneering reins from Gavin and Thea at Southampton. I then went on to join Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement (CAPE) at UCL as their Project Coordinator, working across different mechanisms of academic policy engagement, before joining the Yorkshire & Humber Policy Engagement and Research Network (Y-PERN) in 2023 as their Senior Programme Manager at the University of Leeds. I was also a Vice-Chair of UPEN (2022-2025), and helped develop the UPEN landscape reports on devolved and regional academic policy engagement. I’m also a member of the EDI and International Sub-committees.
In my own time, I’m a qualified mountain leader. I’m a keen runner, climber and footballer. I also enjoy learning languages and am currently learning Mandarin.
What’s your favourite thing about your role?
I’m excited to be working with UPEN members again across the UK! I love learning about UPEN members diverse experiences and having the opportunity to address or highlight those systematic barriers. I’m delighted I get to contribute to the evidence informed policy landscape, working with fantastic colleagues from across the UPEN network.
What has been your career highlight (or highlights) to date?
Providing advice on evidence systems for SAGE and briefing Patrick Vallance on regional academic advisers! But I know I sound like a broken record, I love collaborating with partners from across the UPEN network to produce insight reports – on ARI, surfacing EDI, and regional policy infrastructure, the opportunity to zoom out from the individual to a national picture is always exciting.
What do you think the biggest challenge in academic-policy engagement is at the moment and what can we do about it?
It’s no surprise we’re all working in incredibly challenging climates within our universities. A key lifeline and driver of our work on place academic policy engagement has been the support provided through external funding which is fantastic. Yet a lot of this is short-term or piecemeal, and heavily weighted on the university side. We need more mixed funding – shorter term, to longer term infrastructure funding to enable us to build off what we’ve learnt and take place academic policy engagement to the next level.
What’s one small unexpected thing that always brightens your workday?
Watching the changing weather – I live on the top of a Sheffield hill and the clouds are always entertaining!
What does your dream holiday look like?
There’s two quite polar opposite dreamy holidays: Something that gets me out of my comfort zone, exploring a new place and involving a physical challenge! The other, spending down time with my family on a Swedish island.
Time for Desert Island Discs! If you were cast away on a desert island, what three songs would you currently take with you and why?
ABBA Voulez-Vous – our first dance/party at our wedding
Sam Fender Crumbling Empire – because he’s a legend and probably help explain why i’m on a desert island
Billie Eilish Chihiro – for more chill vibes
Give us a plug for something you’re working on at the moment
We’re focusing a baseline light touch review over the Autumn to help us get a sense of where UPEN and Place-based academic policy engagement sits in the wider HEI and Policy context. We would love to hear from those who have any initial literature (blogs etc) it would be worth us reading about. I would also love to learn more about the contexts across Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland where i’m less familiar.
How can we get in touch with you?
Email me or find me on LinkedIn.
& finally, share with us a snapshot of life outside of work
After work fell races, in my home the Peak District, representing Arsenal.
Related resources
From Caravan to Campus: Storytelling as a Bridge Between Research and Policy
Making an impact on the frontline: engaging with the Home Office’s research
