Member spotlight: Andrew Gill and Lucy Hendon, University of Surrey

Tell us about you – who are you, where do you work, and what’s your role?

Andrew Gill is Public Affairs Manager, and Lucy Hendon is Policy Engagement Officer, at the University of Surrey, and has the invaluable support of Public Affairs Assistant Aleeza Syeda. Andrew is responsible for the University’s engagement with politicians and policy makers at the local, regional, and national levels – working across institutional and research priorities. Lucy works more closely with our academics to support with all aspects of their policy engagement activity, providing training and workshops as well as proactively spotting opportunities and working to enable research to policy engagement.

Tell us about your personal career pathway. What led you to a role focused on connecting research and policy at your institution?

Andrew has worked in Higher Education for the past eight years, having spent a similar amount of time in public affairs consultancy in London before that. He is passionate about advocating for evidence-based policymaking and strengthening the links between universities and policymakers.

Lucy joined Surrey from academic publishing, where she managed several open-access health journals. After years of publishing academic articles, she became intrigued by how that research was used in the real world and could go on to make a difference.

How did your institution first come to be a member of UPEN? What were the original goals for joining the network?

Surrey has been an established member of UPEN prior to the establishment of the policy engagement function, and it was a natural evolution that UPEN membership became coordinated from there.

What is your institution’s overall approach to academic-policy engagement? Could you describe some of the key activities or programmes you focus on?

The policy engagement function at Surrey was established just over two years ago, and the Surrey Policy Network was launched within its first year. As the “inaugural” team, a big part of building up the Surrey Policy Network has been embedding policy engagement activity across the University, developing strong working relationships with colleagues in Faculty and Impact teams, and generally boosting the profile of the function among our academics and external audiences.

Our approach is to work in partnership with our academics, centres, and pan-university institutes (the Institute for People-Centred AI, the Institute for Sustainability, and the Surrey Space Institute, to name just a few) to leverage their research expertise and foster engagement with the policy makers who are approaching the same challenges.

The support itself ranges from acting as policy engagement consultants, flagging opportunities, and hosting training, to supporting REF case studies and providing 1:1 advice. We also develop our own external networks and broker engagement with policymakers who have shared priorities.

Tell us about a specific policy engagement project or achievement from your institution that you are particularly proud of. What was the challenge, what did your team do, and what was the outcome?

We launched Surrey Policy Network in May 2024 to build a community of interested academics, highlight opportunities, and provide a stronger showcase of the great research that happens here at Surrey. With Professor Amelia Hadfield, our academic Chair of the Network, we wanted to build a positive culture for policy activity and learning, sharing opportunities and success stories across peers, and we are proud to have almost 200 researchers signed up. Around 40% of our members are Postgraduates, so we love that we are supporting the next generation of researchers as they’re just getting started on their research impact journey!

Another key aspect of the Surrey Policy Network is building the University’s external profile as a go-to source of policy-relevant expertise, amplifying the excellent work of academics from all backgrounds and disciplines across the institution.

Upon launching the Network, we were delighted to secure the public endorsement of the Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, the former Minister for Universities and Science and, at that time, Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.

We’re also really proud to have hosted this year’s UPEN conference back in June, which saw over 200 delegates come to our Stag Hill campus in Guildford. It was fantastic to see our campus abuzz with colleagues working in policy engagement from universities across the UK, such great discussion in the sector, and gain some insights into all the work that goes on behind the scenes at UPEN. Not only were we blessed with the weather (enabling a BBQ lunch by the lake) and a keynote address from the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser Dame Angela McLean, but we were delighted to see the Surrey Policy Network becoming an established presence within the sector.

From your institution’s perspective, what is the biggest value of being part of the UPEN network today?

It has to be the sense of community in working together and learning from each other, whilst advocating for stronger knowledge exchange processes. In a sector where there are often only small teams or even individuals working in each university, it’s so refreshing to be able to connect with others to share challenges, solutions, and advice.

Lucy attended the UPEN conference in Birmingham in 2023 in only her second month in the role and right from the off it was clear there was a passionate and supportive community in this space, with growing momentum for policy engagement structures and activities.

Finally, what one piece of advice would you give to other members on how to make the most of their UPEN membership?

Take advantage of the brilliant opportunities that UPEN offers and get the academics on board, too. We particularly love the webinars and learning opportunities, which aren’t just of interest for us as knowledge mobilisers, but for academics to gain knowledge directly from a range of external sources in a range of inspiring settings.