The Fellowship is a great programme, it has transformed my view of engineering.
Policy Challenge
In my previous role at the Department for Transport, I had to prepare for high consequence but low likelihood security threats to the UK’s land transport infrastructure. I wanted to gain an understanding of engineering perspective on risk and behaviour change.
Learning Journey
My Policy Fellowship involved 10 meetings with Academy Fellows, from people working on cyberthreats to chemical engineering experts. This diversity was particularly useful given the variety of challenges involved in counter-terrorism security for land transport. Structural silos, information sharing failures and nervousness about blurred accountabilities can inhibit and disincentivize cross-sectoral collaboration and systems thinking in government. How engineers combine systems thinking with an understanding of detail and internal processes has helped me with how to frame decision-making and respond to evolving expectations.
By speaking to experts in a wide range of sectors, I gained insights into multiple approaches to risk mitigation and ownership. It opened up new avenues for more comparative work, and the identification of best practice in the analysis and management of risk. I spoke to engineers who had led major post-incident reviews of regulatory systems, and people engaged in cutting-edge research into new risks and vulnerabilities in emerging technologies. The importance of systems thinking was cited by many of the engineers, who encouraged creative thinking regarding the consequences of potential scenarios and wider systemic risks.
Hannah Tooze is Deputy Director for Road Freight Strategy at the Department for Transport, prior to this and inspired by her Policy Fellowship experience to move towards resilience, she was Deputy Director COVID-19 Policy in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Impact
I completed the programme with a focus on improving the connections between safety and security regulation and design, as well as between resilience and security in government. I initiated the development of a knowledge base of critical national infrastructure networks. I also explored approaches to resilience outlined by the engineers, bringing colleagues into the discussion and connecting them with academics and other experts in organisations with overlapping interests and concerns.