Each academic year, researchers and doctoral students from the department have the opportunity to embark on industry secondments, which provide individuals with the opportunity to exchange knowledge, share expertise and share experiences on matters relating to their research.
During 2017/18, Tracey Denton-Calabrese (Researcher), Aine Kelly (Doctoral Student) and Alice Tawell (Doctoral Student) engaged in the following opportunities within business and government.
Tracey Denton-Calabrese from the department’s Learning and New Technologies group was awarded a three month knowledge exchange secondment with Goldman Sachs, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council’s Impact Accelerator National Productivity Investment Fund. The secondment aimed to help further shape the expansion of Goldman Sachs Gives engagement with young women from disadvantaged backgrounds by drawing on the research outcomes of the team’s Go-Girl project. The secondment ran from 1 January 2018 to 31 March 2018.
Building on doctoral student, Áine Kelly’s, previous research into the health beliefs and experiences of looked after children, in which she has established a discrepancy between policy and practice, Áine was awarded a Parliamentary secondment funded the Wellcome Trust, which ran from October 2017 to April 2018 and provided some practical and in depth knowledge about the working of the parliamentary system, legislation and policy. This additional insight aimed to aid the framing of the theoretical and practical findings of her research in a broader context. Furthermore, it was hoped that the knowledge acquired would give perspectives on how to increase the potential policy impact of her research.
Alice Tawell was awarded funding from the ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership Internship Support Scheme to conduct a three month Knowledge Exchange placement, between September and December 2017, in the Early Years Analysis and Research Unit (EYARU) at the Department for Education (DfE). Alice’s main role was to support the development and refinement of the existing Early Years Foundation Stage Profile, in response to the Primary Assessment in England consultation which was published in September 2017. Alice acted as one of the primary analytical points of contact and advice on a policy led Rapid Evidence Assessment, and provided feedback on the design of a potential EYFSP and EYFS framework implementation and evaluation.