POST Policy Fellowships for PhD students

The POST placements are an excellent opportunity to see how scientists inform policymakers, and how policymakers interact with scientists.

PhDs can spend (usually) three months working at POST

POST is Parliament's in-house source of independent, balanced and accessible analysis of public policy issues related to science and technology. POST provides balanced and accessible overviews of research from across the biological, physical and social sciences, and engineering and technology. places the findings of this research in a policy context for Parliamentary use.

On an annual basis POST Fellowships (for Research Council funded PhD students and / or members of IChemE or BPS) are advertised every summer; ads open early July – and the deadline for most POST Fellowships is 1st September 2016 (before 16:00), although IChemE deadline is later

There are 8 schemes – 6 Research Councils and also the ‘Institute of Chemical Engineering + Chemistry’ scheme as well as the BPS (British Psychological Society) scheme;

the IChemE + Chemistry scheme is open to students who are members of IChemE (don’t have to be Research Council funded as well) but must be doing Chemistry or Chem Eng related research; students can apply for this scheme and put in an application for membership of IChemE at the same time (if they are not already members)
- Students who are funded by one of the Research Councils could apply to more than 1 scheme but need to fill out separate application for each Fellowship (as application process may differ slightly)

POST Fellowships are 3 months long and funding from Research Council continues whilst the student is doing in. Each fellowship can be flexible - so a student applying this summer can undertake the 3 month Fellowship at different times during 2017, but should avoid the month of August ; the Fellowship must be taken while the student is still receiving Research Council funding

• See RCUK guidance for applicants
• Find out more about POST Fellowships by reading what recent Fellowship holders have to say.
• Example of POST briefing note – (‘Trends in ICT’ 2015)