Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise Fellow (PERI)

The Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN) was set up in 2018 by approximately ten higher education institutions. It now has more than 110 UK university and policy members. Institutional leads from each university comprise the knowledge exchange brokers/policy impact colleagues whose responsibilities include disseminating opportunities to relevant colleagues within their institution. The network is voluntary, and we are funded entirely by voluntary donations. In 2025 UPEN was awarded funding from Research England and ESRC to deliver a project focused on infrastructure and capabilities for academic-policy engagement in the UK.  

This role will contribute to developing an understanding of the current, and indicate the future, of the Public Policy Knowledge Brokerage eco-system. This role will work alongside colleagues from a world leading research in public policy and the Head of Public Policy Southampton/Project Co-Lead develop and trial the Policy Engagement Readiness Index (PERI).  

With the Head of Public Policy Southampton (PPS) this role will identify (from domestic and international settings) the range of activity types being delivered by Public Policy Knowledge Brokers based within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Building on this understanding it will determine suitable measures of scale, depth and, where appropriate, efficacy of these activities. This role will devise and conduct, with Head of PPS, qualitative and quantitative approaches to capture stakeholder perception of the utility of HEI based Public Policy Knowledge Brokerages activities. This role will develop visual and narrative summary devices to represent this measure. There is an expectation of opportunities to co-author with the Head of PPS publications for high impact journals as part of PERI’s development which would be well suited to ECRs seeking publications or for Professional Service based careers looking to expand their professional outputs. This role will work alongside two Post Doc Research Assistants based in Durham and an external consultant within this Pillar of activity as well as a delivery team based at UCL.  

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