The Academy of Medical Sciences is preparing to launch the latest recruitment round for policy internships for PhD researchers funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Students on the three-month placements work in the academy’s London office on a range of medical science policy issues. Interns are supported by a three-month extension to their PhD stipend.
The 2014 scheme will open for applications in early April. The academy runs a similar scheme for students funded by the Medical Research Council, which will open for applications in the autumn.
“I had a gut feeling it was something I wanted to do,” says Florence Gohard, a PhD student from the Institute of Cell Biology at the University of Edinburgh, who took part in the scheme in 2013. “I didn’t know whether policy was the direction I wanted to go in, but I was primed to find out more.”
For her application essay, Gohard chose to write about career stability for postdoctoral researchers. “I’ve seen those difficult career transitions and career exits, and I’ve seen the effect this can have on the retention rates of people just coming into science, so that’s why I thought it was important to write about.”
The academy’s director of medical science policy, Rachel Quinn, advises applicants to take every opportunity they can in their application to show that they’ve thought about the policy implications of biomedical research. She says applicants also need “awareness of the organisations that seek to influence policy development”.
The application process requires a letter of support from the applicant’s PhD supervisor, and features an interview. “It was seven years since I’d had a standard job interview with questions about when you’ve had to deal with extreme stress,” says Gohard, “so the interview was a bit of a wake-up call.”
During her placement, Gohard worked on the academy’s report on stratified medicine, published in July 2013, including researching and writing some boxed-out sections and the glossary. She also helped organise an event on research in public health, featuring many high-profile researchers. Gohard is now considering a career in medical science policy. “It’s extremely satisfying that you can get almost instantaneous external feedback on what you’ve done,” she says.