Lessons from a POST Fellowship

News

Posted on Thursday 3 July 2025

PhD student Charlie Le Marquand reflects on her three month POST Fellowship at the Houses of Parliament.

Charlie (middle) on her first day as a POST fellow, on the Terrace of the Houses of Parliament with two other new POST fellows, Shirin Bamezai (left) did her POSTnote on Cultivated Meat and Shelley Cathers (right) who did hers on Virtual Wards and Hospital at Home.

From January to April of this year, I was unusually absent from my LCAB desk, trading it for a new spot in London while doing a three month POST Fellowship at the Houses of Parliament where I’d be working as a Committee Specialist for the Environmental Audit Committee.

Charlie in Westminster Hall, Palace of Westminster.

The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) is an impartial research and knowledge exchange service working across the House of Commons and House of Lords. It provides timely, balanced and impartial information on key topics and issues to parliamentarians. Usually, a POST Fellow will spend 13 weeks producing a POSTnote, a published document aiming to inform on a particular topic. However sometimes fellows are seconded to other areas of parliament, as in my case.

The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), is a House of Commons Select Committee. Select Committees operate in both Houses and scrutinise Government, often through an inquiry which produces a report for Government response. In the House of Commons, there is a Committee to match every Government department but there are also some cross-cutting ones, like EAC.

During my time with EAC, I worked with other specialists on briefs for inquiry evidence sessions and attended committee meetings and oral evidence sessions. My main piece of work was to manage the Committee’s evidence session with the Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Steve Reed, held in March. This involved researching and understanding the policies and targets within his remit and what themes of inquiry the committee might want to take, as well as producing the session brief.

The Environmental Audit Committee’s Secretary of State Session with Steve Reed on the Environmental Protection Policies of Defra, Charlie is sat immediately to the right of EAC Chair, Toby Perkins, having prepared the Committee brief.

To be so close to decision makers, and gaining new understanding of current environment and climate related political affairs was really exciting and a very new experience. As well as making the most of working in the Palace of Westminster - I now know many weird and wonderful facts about its history and architecture! - I also picked up some lessons which I hope to take with me on my academic journey and which I thought I’d use this space to share with others.

I’ve written them in the context of engaging with a Select Committee, however I see this as applicable in other contexts of engaging with policy too.

Lesson 1: It’s not all about the paper

This is not news I don’t think, but I now see it with more clarity.

Providing information to parliamentarians is no mean feat, it has to be accurate, with breadth and balance of an issue, it has to be impartial, and it needs to be up to date (with more updates needed if new events occur between the brief and the event) and because of this need for timeliness, you’re often working to the deadline.

Academic papers don’t fit this bill very well. They’re not to-the-moment, they usually only present one piece of the bigger puzzle, the language is by no means a quick or easy read, and often the main document is stuck behind a paywall. All of this is also not great if parliamentarians want to find out more.

So research only available as an academic paper is less likely to end up directly under the nose of those working within the policy space.

Solution? Layman’s terms outputs and easy ‘cut and paste’ takeaways front and centre. Being picked up in the news is obviously a great way but this doesn’t happen all the time. Writing articles for organisations or blog posts can be a great start, especially if it’s picked up on social media where others might see it.

Research might also end up in front of policymakers but one removed, maybe they’re not looking at your work, but your research was referenced in a Government body report or a POSTnote.

Lesson 2: Be Proactive

Relevant people won’t always just find you.

I learnt that there are several ways you might find yourself sitting in front of a panel of MPs giving inquiry evidence. You might be known in the field, maybe you’re the right person in a key organisation or research group. However, it also might be that you’ve already made contact by writing a good piece of written evidence and the committee would like to know more.

The Environmental Audit Committee’s Secretary of State Session with
DESNZ Secretary of State Ed Miliband, Charlie sits on the front row on the right hand side, one of the highlight sessions during her time as a POST fellow!

In the case of Select Committees, but also similar in POST, when an inquiry launches, submissions for written evidence will open. These are often in the form of questions and you don’t need to answer all of them if they’re not in your remit, and anyone can submit. A lot of Learned Societies, such as the British Ecological Society, will work with academics if they need help putting their evidence together. You’re not always going to feel you’ve got something to write, but it’s worth being aware of what it entails, and to sign up to relevant mailing lists so if something does come along, you’ll know.

A comment that stuck with me was that sometimes academics submit great written evidence but when contacted about being an oral witness, say they don’t have the expertise.This is, of course, sometimes valid, but the point did give me food for thought. I wondered whether, if a superior expert isn’t found, important points are ever missed.

Lesson 3: Stay Informed on Relevant Policy

Pre my fellowship, when talking about my PhD project, I’d often say I’d like my research to inform policy decisions, but looking back now, I didn’t know very much about policy and goals that are relevant to my work! Having spent three months researching the scope of the Defra Secretary of State and Government environment and sustainability targets, I’ve never known so much! As soon as I sat down at my PhD desk I started editing my first chapter introduction. Where I’d, perhaps weakly, attempted to link in some policy relevance, now I had specific examples and more understanding of their potential implications.

Now the task is keeping on top of all that, while focussing more on my PhD again. I have learnt though that it’s hard to have work be relevant to policy if you don’t keep up-to-date with what’s going on - so I’ll be keeping an eye out for that new Environmental Improvement Plan!

Lesson 4: Know What Policymakers Want

Understanding from Lesson 3 will make you more effective at this one!

Those working in the policy and parliament space are often working to understand and disseminate information on topics of some breadth and they have to be efficient, usually working to quick turnaround. It’s important they can have the context and key takeaways easily. More explanation risks losing the reader before they’ve got the key bits - What is the issue? How has it become a problem? Why do we need to know? What are the solutions?

I hope these lessons help me along my academic journey. I think in a way, they’re quite obvious, but sometimes it’s pinning down how you do them that’s less so.

Like many, I want my work to make a difference and a lot of the battle is likely working out what that means and how you actually do it. I think this fellowship has given me some new understanding of how to start, as well as being an experience I won’t forget.