Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones with Keri Wong and UCL Institute of Education students. Credit: Courtesy of Keri Wong.

16 September 2025

By Keri Wong

‘A day in a life…’ is an excellent role-play experience for children dreaming big and teenagers wanting to find out about career options – but why not have this for academics, too? Like many academics, I’ve spent most of my career trying hard to publish, not perish. This year, however, I got the chance to extend my policy-related networking, this time with a visit to the House of Lords, where scientific evidence is used to scrutinise, ‘sense check’ and inform government decisions.

Between March and July, I was one of 30 scientists who swapped roles with parliamentarians and civil servants as part of the annual Royal Society Pairing Scheme. The scheme aims to build relationships between scientists and politicians to help support evidence-based policymaking. It has been running since 2001 in collaboration with the Government Office for Science.

My pairing was with Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones, whom I was delighted to be able to spend the week shadowing in Parliament. I was invited to watch an evidence inquiry for scaling start-ups in the UK, and to witness various Lord’s debates on important bills being passed (which included seeing the hardcopy Children’s Mental Health bill that I contributed to!). Another highlight was sitting front row in the Speaker’s Gallery to watch Prime Minister’s Questions and delivery of the Spring Budget. This exciting, jam-packed week set the bar quite high, and I knew I had to start planning Baroness Neville-Jones’ reciprocal visit to UCL soon.

Having decided upon our itinerary, our first stop was West London. There, I introduced Yara, CEO of Jamal Edwards Delve. Yara was one of the first youth workers I met in London back in 2019 and the project we collaborated on reset the trajectory of my research – from examining best ways to measure and minimise mental illness risk in schoolchildren, to empowering marginalised young people with mental health and life skills through youth clubs and community centres. We spent the afternoon learning about the young people that youth clubs help, as third spaces where they can socialise, learn a new skill and feel safe, but also the lack of resources for this vital work.

The second stop was the Home Office, where I am an ESRC Policy Fellow secondee. It was a valuable opportunity to share experience and perspectives across the roles of a peer and former minister and senior civil servant, serving officials and academic researcher, not least on the issue of research evidence for policy. The third and final stop was UCL.

Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones at the Centre for Education and Criminal Justice, UCL Institute of Education. Credit: Courtesy of Keri Wong.

Excited by Baroness Neville-Jones’ visit, my students, charity partners, and colleagues at the Centre for Education and Criminal Justice gave her the full UCL welcome. Students kicked off with two presentations of relevance to the government’s ‘Safer Streets Mission’: an evaluation study of the impact of creative arts education on young people’s health (funded by UKRI), and a second on the role of youth clubs in promoting young people’s mental health (supported by UCL Grand Challenges). Over a bustling lunch we were joined by more UCL Institute of Education colleagues, including Professor Norbert Pachler, IOE’s Vice-Dean Enterprise, who outlined IOE’s approach in applying scientific discoveries through entrepreneurship. To follow, we were joined by sector leaders and lived experience experts from St. Giles, Prisoners’ Education Trust, and The Oswin Project, who shared the work they were doing to reduce recidivism, encouraging rehabilitation within and outside prisons through education and mentorship.

“The Oswin Project was grateful to have the opportunity to join and hope Baroness Neville Jones enjoyed hearing about the positive effects of rehabilitation in comparison with the negative effects of incarceration.” – Fiona Sample MBE, CEO, The Oswin Project.

“Presenting our research project to the Baroness was an opportunity I never could have imagined, especially as a postgraduate student. It was a great experience to put myself in the shoes of someone who works in policy and learn how to present our research in an accessible and appealing way.” – Sude Işıl Baştuğ, Research Assistant, UCL Institute of Education.

Reflecting back on these interactions, I can see just how valuable the Pairing Scheme has been for me and my colleagues. It gave us a reason to meet leaders from different sectors, spend time with each other, and to discuss shared real-world challenges. I remember feeling a renewed sense of energy, clarity and purpose to continue with what I know best: producing good science that can inform policy.

Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones at the Centre for Education and Criminal Justice, UCL Institute of Education. Credit: Courtesy of Keri Wong.

On behalf of my students, colleagues at the Centre for Education and Criminal Justice, and UCL, we are thankful for the Royal Society scheme for introducing us to Baroness Neville-Jones and the opportunity to hear more about the policy world. We were thrilled by Pauline’s willingness to engage so enthusiastically and to lend a helpful ear in supporting our efforts in giving voice to marginalised groups, and in leaving us with some helpful tips on how best to influence policy from the outside. The reciprocal visits have made government and parliament more accessible to us, which can only help us make our work more useful and accessible to them, too.

Pauline, who has seen this blog, heartily endorses the last point. She says that her various encounters were an eyeopener into the challenges of daily life for many, especially young people, and into the dedication and determination shown by those seeking to improve conditions. What she learnt clothed the language of legislation that comes to the Lords for passage in the reality of people’s lives. She thinks that Parliamentarians get as much out of the Pairing Scheme as the Fellows.

Royal Society Pairing Scheme

The latest round of the Royal Society Pairing Scheme is now open. Will you join the 2026 cohort?

Acknowledgements

With thanks to everyone who shared their insights and important work as part of the Pairing Scheme visits: Prisoners’ Education Trust (Jon Collins), St. Giles (Maria McNicholl, Brendan Ross, Alison Drew), The Oswin Project (Fiona Sample, Caroline Chrisp), Professor John Vorhaus, Dr Lusi Morhayim, Jessica Francis, Emily Tsz, Piper Thompson, Rosalind Robshaw, Thaina Matmati, Sude Işıl Baştuğ, Jasmine Lee, summer placement students (Chloe Reeves, Heran Daniel), Polly Van Alstyne (Senior Innovation Networks Manager in the Business & Innovation Partnerships team at UCL), JE Delve (Yara Mirdad), and Home Office colleagues.