Dr Monica Leverton attended the House of Lords on 12th July for a celebration event of the King’s Parliamentary Research Programme, established and led by Baroness Deborah Bull CBE, together with Policy Institute Director, Professor Bobby Duffy, and colleagues. The event brought together early career researchers and PhD student interns involved in the programme, and parliamentarians who have supported this initiative. King’s President and Principal Shitij Kapur, and Senior Vice President, Professor Rachel Mills, amongst others, attended the event to hear from the parliamentary interns and associated Peers about the progress and successes of the programme.

Monica has been involved in the parliamentary programme since November 2022, working on a Policy Research Translation project to build a two-way knowledge exchange path between King’s researchers and parliamentarians. The aim of this project has been to identify routes to gauge priority research areas that align with forthcoming legislative agendas and parliamentary debates, and to encourage researchers to engage with relevant policy-makers to provide evidence-based knowledge in support of parliamentary briefings and debates. As part of this work, Monica has been developing a handbook for researchers to better understand policy-making and ways to drive impact and societal change through policy engagement.