Barriers and Opportunities for Early Career Researchers Engaging in Science Policy

Engaging successfully with the policymaking process can present challenges to researchers at all stages of their profession but can be particularly off-putting to those in the earlier stages of their career. Consistent engagement from researchers throughout their career is vital to developing best practice for evidence-based policymaking and this relies on a reduction in barriers to knowledge exchange. Welcoming early career researchers (ECR) into the science policy interface helps to address challenges to research dissemination throughout their career, namely a lack of understanding in how to contribute, when to contribute, and feeling emboldened to do so.

This session will explore the challenges and incentives ECR have to engaging with science policy, using our own policy projects to explore what can encourage or discourage people into taking part in our work. This poster will assess the experiences of ECR who have engaged with our projects, looking to provide a framework to guide other learned institutions in their policy work, whilst demonstrating methods of engagement to ECR themselves.