The world is facing some very significant challenges at the moment and it’s so important to encourage the brightest and the best to put their minds to solving the policy conundrums of our time
Mark Easton, Home Editor of BBC News and Policy Idol Host
21 March 2022
A night of inspiring pitches at the Policy Idol 2022 live final
Student finalists impressed the judges with their inspiring ideas for changing the world
This March, we returned to the Great Hall for the first time in three years for the Policy Idol grand final, where we heard students from across King’s pitch their ideas to change the world to an all-star judging panel.
From ending homelessness to providing free contraception to women in the UK, to transforming palliative care and revolutionising disability access, the pitches presented innovative solutions to some of the most pressing challenges facing society today.
It was an impressive line-up, but Grace Miller, Madison Greenhall, Emily Ives and Abigail Worrell wowed the judges with their pitch on tackling drink spiking and were crowned the overall winners.
Now in its ninth year, Policy Idol is an annual competition where students from across King’s are invited to present world-changing policy solutions to a panel of leading figures from the worlds of politics, academia and industry. This year the final took place in person on Tuesday 15 March, after being held online due to the Covid-19 pandemic for the previous two years.
Hosted by Mark Easton, Home Editor of BBC News, the judging panel included former Australian Prime Minister and Chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, Julia Gillard, Dame Louise Casey, current head of the independent review of standards and culture at the Metropolitan Police, and the Policy Institute’s Director of Engagement, Suzanne Hall.
Alongside the overall winners, standout pitches snagged runner-up prizes. This included Samuel Remi-Akinwale, Ollieur Rahman and Laurence Mills, who impressed the panel with their pitch on male suicide prevention. Aditi Mudgal, Frances Weston and Karin Demkova inspired the judges and the audience with their idea to transform disability access with an accessibility traffic lights system, walking away with a runner-up prize and the Audience Pick award.
There was an impressive range of policy ideas from the 2022 finalists, all of whom evidence the wealth of research and analytical skills among King’s students. It was wonderful to see the interdisciplinary engagement, with finalists drawn from medicine to politics and many disciplines in between. The future of policymaking and analysis is in good hands! Thank you to all the students involved at each stage for sharing their time and energy.
Professor Linda McKie, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy at King’s College London
Pedro Braga, one of the finalists said:
“It was great to participate in something of such dimensions without having any experience in public policy before. The support from the Policy Institute, the other finalists, and the judges were amazing, which makes the policy idol one of the highlights of my first year!”
Joyce Jojan, another finalist said:
“I really enjoyed the process of Policy Idol – it helped me get out of my comfort zone in terms of public speaking as I hadn’t done that for years since the pandemic. Learning how to make a policy itself was particularly challenging but also interesting and I will use the skills I attained from this process in future endeavours.”
The team at the Policy Institute will be working with all the student finalists to help them develop and expand their ideas across King’s and beyond. You can find out what previous finalists went on to do in this video.
You can watch the Policy Idol 2022 final here:
For further information on Policy Idol, please contact Sofia Cusano, Events and Stakeholder Manager at the Policy Institute, on sofia.cusano@kcl.ac.uk