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Q: What did you enjoy from this placement and what worked well? 

A: We really liked being able to see first-hand inside the UK political system, in particular within the Greater London Authority (GLA) as an institution - a really valuable experience. We were very grateful for the team supporting our placement. They got the right balance of support while at same time giving us full academic freedom. We had a clear understanding of our roles and that we were not there as, for example, unpaid interns to do work for the GLA. This meant that there was no influence or direction which could compromise the boundaries with the academic research. 

The onboarding process was seamless resulting in no hindrances to the academic research, e.g. emails were set up from the first week of the placement including access to relevant, internal systems. This also resulted in less pressure and the ability to work consistently through an 8 week sprint. Also having a direct point of contact in the GLA really helped us to link with the right people at the right time including for site visits.  

Q: What could be improved for future placements? 

A: It was a double-edged sword here given the large scale of the project. For instance, each of the main project areas could have realistically covered a PhD! 

In comparison to other placements outside of the GLA, this was the broadest and most expansive in nature. So it was a bit stressful at first, but by the end of the placement we had a good grasp of the project’s reach. As a general rule, we would recommend host organisations try to be as specific as possible on the project specification. There has to be an agreed understanding that the priority comes from the host team. 

We liked the broadness of the project but the challenge came on how to deliver. Also you can compromise depth for breadth of the project. We would recommend setting the priorities and agreeing what is the biggest thing your policy organisation wants to know about before running the placement. For instance, is the priority investment, developing a place or strengthening relationships between academic researchers and policy makers?  

We were given a 2 page brief, though there was not a direct research question, so we had to do some refining and redefining of the policy problem. We would also recommend the brief be as succinct as possible. 

It would be even better to have more opportunities to go on site visits, maybe 1 visit per week, given these engagements were very positive experiences. The more immersive of an experience with opportunity to be in as many hands- on meetings as possible the better! 

Q: Any final reflections… 

A: We enjoyed the structured working week hours and the ideal arrangement would be to have 2 in-person days (with largely face to face meetings and plenty of interactions) in the policy organisation and 3 days working elsewhere.  

It was also nice to have a social activity to celebrate completion of the placement. GLA staff were really helpful mentors and gave us vital careers advice. 

Overall we came away with a very positive experience and hope to see more of these types of placements. It is great that LRaPP is in this space match making academics and policy makers!  

To learn more and get involved please visit our student engagement service. If you are for example a London policy organisation, council, community based organisation or a university planning or already running an undergraduate or postgraduate student placement scheme to tackle the capital’s policy challenges we would love to hear from you.  

You can read the final policy briefing from this project which includes findings and recommendations here.