Podcast - Annual Conference 2023: Demystifying Science Policy
Posted on May 3, 2023 by Katie O'Connor and Clare Baker
The latest edition of the Microbiology Society’s podcast, Microbe Talk, is now online. This episode was recorded at our Annual Conference in Birmingham, where for the very first time we had an entire session dedicated to science policy. In this episode, Katie and Clare chat with Dr Isobel Stanton, an invited speaker, and delegates that attended the session about how they found it and what they learned.
Music: Blue Dot Sessions 'Dunder'
Transcript
00;00;10;05 - 00;00;42;19
Katie
Hello, everyone. You are listening to Microbe Talk. I'm Katie, the Policy Engagement officer at the Microbiology Society. This special episode was recorded at the Microbiology Society Annual Conference, where for the very first time we had a session entirely dedicated to science policy. We invited speakers from academia alongside policy professionals, to chat about the importance of engaging with policy and to discuss how researchers can maximize the impact of their work in tackling complex global challenges like antimicrobial resistance. After the session, myself and Clare, our Communications and Media officer, chatted with speakers and delegates to find out what they'd learned and whether they felt inspired to get involved in policy. As I say, this episode was recorded at our annual conference, so you might hear a little bit of background noise.
00;01;00;25 - 00;01;08;15
Clare
We're here at Annual Conference 2023 in Birmingham.
00;01;09;07 - 00;01;11;18
Katie
Hi, I’m Katie. So I’m the policy officer at the Microbiology Society. And for the first time this year, we had a session completely dedicated to policy. So Clare and I are going to walk around and find out how people found it and talk a little bit about getting involved in policy work. Firstly, we spoke with Dr Isobel Stanton, who works at the UK Centre of Ecology and Hydrology and was one of the invited speakers at this event.
00;01;29;07 - 00;01;39;24
Isobel
My name is Isobel Stanton. I'm a postdoctoral researcher at the UK Center for Ecology and Hydrology, and I work on environmental AMR.
00;01;40;08 - 00;01;44;21
Clare
You were invited here to speak at our policy session today. What did you talk about?
00;01;45;24 - 00;02;16;09
Isobel
So I talked about the work I've been doing with environmental regulators and also we currently are undertaking a review of how the UK has responded to the AMR National Action National Action Plan. So that is contracted work by the Department of Health and Social Care. But as part of that, we have been undertaking qualitative interviews with lots of different people from different sectors, including UK government and environmental regulators.
00;02;16;20 - 00;02;30;14
Clare
What would you say to someone who is perhaps a bit hesitant? I think there's lots of reasons why people might be hesitant to get involved in policy. What would your advice be? What would you say to someone who is hesitant but probably does want to get involved?
00;02;31;27 - 00;03;06;25
Isobel
I would say if you have access to people's emails, just email them. People are extremely receptive and really keen in terms of data sharing and knowledge sharing and just having a discussion with them. And we have asked for help with scoping of projects and they have certain, you know, not everybody replies, but a lot of people are really receptive and they really want to know the outcomes of the of the reports of the research that they're taking part in.
00;03;07;03 - 00;03;39;00
Isobel
For the qualitative interviews one of the regulators has said something along the lines of we often support academics in that in their research by providing letters of support when they're applying for a grant application and actually after that, they never hear from them again. And they would really like to see the outcomes of that data, would really like to help in terms of what data they have and could share with them, but also it might lead to a more policy impact of your research if you are continue to keeping them in the loop.
00;03;39;12 - 00;03;49;14
Clare
I suppose what would you say is the role of societies like Microbiology Society in working towards better evidence based policy?
00;03;50;22 - 00;04;15;18
Isobel
I guess Society could just be helping link researchers with policy makers if you don't have those contacts through your academic contacts. Having a list of policy makers who are keen to engage and look at the evidence base that academics are generating and being able to link link those two sectors together is really useful because otherwise you could just be publishing papers and nothing.
00;04;15;18 - 00;04;17;02
Isobel
Actually, nobody's ever seeing them.
00;04;18;03 - 00;04;41;19
Clare
So I think sometimes there can potentially, especially in policy, it's all about collaboration, It's all about scientists being able to give policymakers the tools they can to be able to make well-informed decisions about policy. Frustratingly, sometimes that's not kind of what gets portrayed, I think, across to scientists. For example, how would you speak to scientists to kind of reassure them I guess?
00;04;41;19 - 00;05;11;25
Isobel
I think that some of the work that we've done, especially the contract and the work that's been kind of a contract from these policy departments and these are they kind of scope the work for you and so you're just delivering work to them more, kind of like a consultancy base. And these grants are open to academics, but often people get extremely focused on research grants from more traditional sources, which may not have quite as much direct policy impact.
00;05;12;05 - 00;05;39;25
Isobel
And I've been working on three grants for the Environment Agency in the last six months delivering as part of their response to the National Action Plan on AMR. And you know, you're helping as well as delivering the work and getting collating the data that they want to see and collating the evidence. You're also then helping them based on recommendations that you're providing in those reports to scope out future work and direction for those different agencies within government departments.
00;05;40;25 - 00;05;43;18
Clare
What do you hope for the future of AMR policy?
00;05;44;12 - 00;06;14;26
Isobel
I would say this comes from a very biased perspective, and I would hope that people start to understand better maybe the risks that the environment does pose. There's a lot of emphasis on clinical side of things and obviously that's extremely important and there's there's kind of very limited evidence, but the evidence base is now growing to show that AMR can transmit from the environment to humans and cause a negative human health outcome.
00;06;16;09 - 00;06;38;19
Isobel
And whilst the evidence base is growing, I think there are certain people both in policy but also in the academic sphere who don't really think of the environment as an important role. From a just a personal perspective, I've seen those discussions happen in person between like academics on both the environmental and the the clinical side, but also as Twitter fueds.
00;06;39;27 - 00;07;09;24
Isobel
And I think it's yeah, obviously the clinical side is extremely important, but we know that one of the key beta lactamase resistance genes originated from a environmental species. And so having policy that would limit pollution into the environment, into environments where humans or animals of value such as livestock are interacting with, such as bathing water sites or even wild swimming sites that aren't designated bathing waters, but are but people are being highly exposed to potentially raw sewage.
00;07;09;29 - 00;07;32;13
Isobel
Which I know it's a very hot topic in the news at the moment. Having regulation in those areas or even just monitoring because, you know, there's no there's no monitoring of AMR in the environment. That's a requirement at the moment. There is a pilot experiment being undertaken by the Environment Agency, but all the bathing water sites are only focusing on specific organisms and not on their AMR profile.
00;07;32;13 - 00;07;38;05
Isobel
And so having those sort of regulations in place to protect human health I think would be really important.
00;07;38;05 - 00;07;45;07
Clare
That was amazing. I'm so enthralled by your answer. Thank you so much for your time.
00;07;45;07 - 00;07;52;17
Katie
Then we managed to catch a few delegates who actually attended the session to ask them what they'd learned and whether they felt inspired to get involved with policy themselves.
00;07;53;22 - 00;07;58;11
Clare
How did you find our policy session today at the annual conference?
00;07;59;03 - 00;08;08;23
Delegate 1
I really enjoyed it. I, I liked how the panel and like everyone that was speaking, were clearly were engaged in their work, they were very enthusiastic with what they were talking about, which is good to see.
00;08;09;07 - 00;08;13;25
Clare
Coming out of our first ever policy event at annual conference. What have you learned?
00;08;14;12 - 00;08;28;09
Delegate 2
So, so much. I think the most important thing is that researchers actually have a huge stake in policy and that we're not just the people doing the research and it’s up to the policymakers to do everything else. We have a say and that we need to get involved.
00;08;29;23 - 00;08;48;19
Delegate 3
All sorts really I mean, it was a range of different speakers. I think that there are more opportunities for policy than I originally thought. I thought it was you go and work in the civil service or well, the House of Commons Library or something like that. But I think it's much broader than that. And there's more private opportunities as well as in the public sector.
00;08;48;19 - 00;08;49;14
Delegate 3
So that was really cool.
00;08;50;00 - 00;08;53;03
Clare
After this session, are you inspired to get involved in science policy?
00;08;53;29 - 00;09;27;09
Delegate 1
I think absolutely. I can't go like properly feet first in there, but it's definitely made me more aware of how our work as a you know, as a microbiologist, how our work is impacted and impacts the lives of others. And it's made me think of like, what more can I do in terms of both as a as like a person of this nation as as well as a microbiologist, what I can do for the community as well as a scientist, and to hopefully direct the influence, the MPs to kind of get those changes that are so desperately needed.
00;09;28;14 - 00;09;31;02
Clare
Would you get involved in policy after this talk?
00;09;31;15 - 00;09;51;08
Delegate 3
Yes, definitely. I mean, I think one of the reasons I went anyway was because I'm quite interested in it. But I think given what some of the speakers said, I think I'd be far more confident in applying for some things and maybe trying to get my foot in the door in some other way. So I think that's one of the things I got from the session was how to get your foot in the door.
00;09;51;08 - 00;09;51;29
Delegate 3
So yeah, definitely.
00;09;52;13 - 00;09;55;02
Clare
Are you now inspired to get involved in policy?
00;09;55;12 - 00;10;11;20
Delegate 2
Yeah, absolutely. I think if anything, I'm just going to go and do my own research, find out who I can speak to and get people that I know the researchers that I know to get involved in research and just kind of try and have this like sort of nice massive push to try and get policy done.
00;10;12;14 - 00;10;17;15
Clare
And what would your advice be to your friends who are researchers, what are you going to say to them about getting involved in policy?
00;10;18;00 - 00;10;36;29
Delegate 2
Go and find out what you can do. It's not just up to the policy makers to find out what types of bills and legislations they can make. It's up to us to provide the research and the evidence that they need to make this type of work happen. So just go and find research, go and find people you can talk to and yeah, just find out more.
00;10;36;29 - 00;10;45;18
Katie
Thank you very much for listening to this episode of Microbe Talk. To find out more about our policy work, you can head to our website at microbiologysociety.org