CSaP (the Centre for Science and Policy) at the University of Cambridge held a Professional Development Policy Workshop at Newnham College.
PET Director Sarah Norcross was among the invited speakers to talk about their experience of policy work. The workshop began with an excellent introduction from Nicky Buckley, who is the Director for Fellowships and Networks at CSaP.
Speakers had been invited to present a case study, and Sarah chose PET's campaign work to change the law to permit mitochondrial donation to avoid the transmission of mitochondrial disease from mother to child. She presented some of the challenges - mitochondria is a long and difficult word and many people don't understand what it means. Therefore, learning to communicate clearly and concisely was vital. In addition to this politicians and the public were unfamiliar with mitochondrial diseases and so that was another area that needed good communication.
Sarah emphasised the importance of working with other stakeholders, particularly patient groups such as the Lily Foundation whose members' experiences demonstrated the impact of having an affected child so much better than a researcher, doctor or PET could.
Dr Christina Rozeik who is the Programme Manager at Cambridge Reproduction outlined her involvement in the development and publication of the world's first Code of Practice setting out best practice for the generation and use of human stem cell-based embryo models (SCBEMs) for research.
A group by experts and practitioners in science, law, ethics and regulation drawn from across the UK drafted the Code by via an extensive process of deliberation and consultation. This took more than a year to do. PET was a partner in this project and you can down load the Code here.
The work of the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST) was explained by Jenny Chapman, who is Biology and Health Adviser there. From finding way your round the Palace of Westminster to how POSTnotes are published, she covered it all.
This CSaP policy workshop will have undoubtedly inspired researchers to dip their toe into policy work.