Government and academia: Secondments

This is one of five deep dives into mechanisms UK central government uses to engage with researchers. The deep dives are accompanied by a report looking at the big picture of how government can improve its approach to researcher engagement. 

These outputs build on past Institute research on how government can work better with academia, and the IfG Academy’s work in supporting academics seeking to engage with policy makers.

Secondments can be designed for specific purposes, but they can have wide-ranging benefits 

In recent years, secondments into government have proliferated and academic researchers are often the intended targets for these opportunities. Secondments can have a range of goals, including the following: 

• Addressing capacity gaps in departments: Many secondments are funded externally by research councils, learned societies or universities and they provide an opportunity for civil service teams to draw on extra support from academics. These will often be ‘open call’ secondments and academics will work across different projects as part of their secondment. 
• Upskilling and knowledge transfer for officials: We heard examples of academics being seconded into teams specifically to upskill colleagues in different methods. For instance, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) recruited several academic secondees to support its In-House Research Unit, which specialises in carrying out qualitative research, who helped develop a new training regime for qualitative methods. ³⁷ Department for Work and Pensions, ‘DWP annual statement on compliance with the concordat to support research integrity, 2024 to 2025’, GOV.UK, 30 January 2025, retrieved 8 June 2026, www.gov.uk/government/publications/dwp-annual-statement-on-research-integrity-2024-to-2025/dwp-annual-statement-on-compliance-with-the-concordat-to-s…
• Tackling specific projects or bringing unique specialisms: Secondments can also be used to bring in academics who have specialisms that can support a specific project or have a skill set that is missing from government. The No.10 Innovation Fellowship Programme flags specific priority areas where it seeks more expertise, such as among artificial intelligence (AI) engineers and cloud platform engineers. ³⁸ Cabinet Office, ‘The No10 Innovation Fellowship Programme’, GOV.UK, 12 May 2023, retrieved 8 June 2026, www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-no10-innovation-fellowship-programme

What departments want from secondees will naturally shape the nature and set-up of the secondment scheme or opportunity, but where a secondment works, departments can expect further benefits beyond those listed above. An interview-based evaluation of the policy fellowship of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), launched in 2021, found that the presence of secondees created high-trust low-risk relationships where officials could bring problems and questions to academics and where academics could challenge embedded ways of working and offer critical thinking. ³⁹ Flinders M and Benson-Egglenton J, Stepping Out: Early-stage evaluation of the 2021 ESRC policy fellowships , Economic and Social Research Council, 2024, www.ukri.org/publications/stepping-out-early-stage-evaluation-of-2021-esrc-policy-fellowships  It cites “structured serendipity”, which brought together people who would not normally meet in professional contexts and in turn created unexpected insights and opportunities. ⁴⁰ Ibid.  

There appear to be more opportunities for secondments across government in recent years 

It remains difficult to gauge the number of researchers seconded to government departments, due to a lack of available data and the range of schemes that come and go over time. But secondments appear to have become a more embedded mechanism over time and there has been more activity related to secondments from external organisations such as learned societies, research funders and individual research institutions. A range of secondment opportunities cater to academics at different career stages – ranging from shorter-term placements typically aimed at PhD researchers, to longer, more intensive placements for mid- to senior-career academics. 

Secondments may be broadly categorised into three types: 

• schemes set up within government – multi-year or permanent schemes that a government department or body sets up and manages 
• schemes that organisations outside of government set up in partnership with policy partners – multi-year or permanent schemes that external bodies such as learned societies, funding bodies and individual research institutions like universities set up and manage 
• ad-hoc secondments – one-off secondments that a government department or an external body sets up and manages.

None of these three secondment types is reserved solely for researchers. There are also cross-sector knowledge exchange schemes in place such as STEM Futures. This is a framework agreement allowing partner organisations across industry, academia and the public sector to exchange and promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) knowledge through shadowing, mentoring, placements and secondments. ⁴¹ Government Science & Engineering Profession, ‘STEM Futures Programme’, GOV.UK, 18 May 2023, retrieved 8 June 2026, www.gov.uk/government/news/stem-futures-programme  

Another major development has been the relative rise of policy-to-research secondments, where officials step outside of Whitehall to spend time at universities or to collaborate on research projects with researchers. The final report from the Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement (CAPE) project highlighted that there is high demand from policy partners to participate in fellowships at research institutions as well as host academics in their organisations. ⁴² Chaytor S, Parker R and Stevenson O, The Art of the Possible: Catalysts, collaboration and capabilities in academic–policy engagement , Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement, 2025, retrieved 29 June 2026, www.cape.ac.uk/2025/01/20/the-art-of-the-possible-catalysts-collaborations-and-capabilities-in-academic-policy-engagement  And there is more activity emerging in this space. On the back of a £3.75 million grant from the ESRC, the Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP) at the University of Cambridge has launched Evidence Exchange (EvEx) – a new consortium of UK universities and research organisations that will offer new policy-to-research opportunities for officials. ⁴³ Centre for Science and Policy, ‘New national network Evidence Exchange to enable civil and public servants to learn and connect with research organisations’, press release, 7 January 2026, retrieved 29 June 2026, www.csap.cam.ac.uk/new-national-network-evidence-exchange-to-enable-civil-and-public-servants-to-learn-and-connect-with-research-organisations  As previous Institute for Government research has highlighted, seconding existing officials outwards so they can learn new skills and develop subject expertise will also increase the cognitive diversity of the civil service. ⁴⁴ Urban J and Thomas A, Opening Up: How to strengthen the civil service through external recruitment, Institute for Government, 2022, p. 13, retrieved 29 June 2026, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/civil-service-external-recruitment

There is more understanding of what works when it comes to secondments 

There has been more focus recently on understanding how secondments can work better in practice. The CAPE project has produced practical guidance outlining six pillars for creating better research-to-policy secondments: 

• preparing for secondees and making roles and responsibilities clear 
• embedding secondees in organisations 
• creating space for experimentation through co-design and challenge 
• having flexibility in case projects need to change 
• having mutual understanding of each other’s ways of working 
• ensuring that universities and host organisations integrate outcomes and learning in their respective wider academic and policy communities. ⁴⁵ Tofts A and Parker R, Research to Policy Fellowships: Six pillars for optimising success, Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement, 2024, www.cape.ac.uk/2024/07/30/research-to-policy-fellowships-six-pillars-for-optimising-success  

Many of these themes, alongside things like the benefits of creating cohorts of secondees within organisations, align with the conversations we had as part of this project. The Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN) has recently set up a Policy Fellowship Network to support those who are working on the design and delivery of secondment programmes. ⁴⁶ Hodgson L, Tofts A and Tan A, ‘Policy Fellowships Network will use shared learning to improve practice’, Universities Policy Engagement Network, 7 January 2026, retrieved 8 June 2026, https://upen.ac.uk/resources/policy-fellowships-network-will-use-shared-learning-to-improve-practice

There is also more awareness of why secondments may not work so well 

Alongside having a greater understanding of what works well, it is also important to know why secondments may not go to plan. Below are some of the reasons people involved in our research gave:

• broader structural issues such as churn, meaning there is a lack of consistency within teams where a secondee is embedded 
• lack of proper induction or training for researchers on how the civil service works or for officials on how to manage researchers as secondees 
• failure to co-develop work plans between the secondee and the department • lack of capacity within the department to manage the secondee 
• mismatched expectations between the secondee and the department. 

There are many cases where ad-hoc secondments are successful, but these issues are more common in ad-hoc or opportunistic secondments, where resource, capacity and management constraints mean there is a risk that they run into problems and may produce less effective secondment opportunities. Furthermore, our interviewees highlighted that, in some cases, when compared with more permanent schemes, ad-hoc secondments are subject to an onerous recruitment process and were are likely to bring in a diverse range of applicants. 

However, these issues can be addressed through the development of departmentally owned secondment schemes. 

There has been some growth in structured secondment schemes managed by government bodies 

There has been some growth in more structured secondment schemes managed by departments or other government bodies in recent years, although it is still the case that only a handful of departments have set up dedicated programmes. For example, the DSIT fellowship, which is managed by a dedicated group of officials in the Expert Exchange Programme (EEP) team, adopts a cohort approach to placements, which includes induction training and quarterly events, while the secondments themselves are based around problem statements, with explicit expectations that secondees co-develop projects with policy makers. Significantly, the EEP provides a strong bureaucratic infrastructure, with consistent support and contacts managed centrally by the department.

As well as providing consistent support, pooling responsibility for developing and managing secondment schemes in bodies such as the EEP means that officials can develop key relationships with partners and develop expertise, enabling them to build on what works to improve these schemes over time.

This also provides a base from which to properly evaluate secondments. In 2023, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) launched the Research Commissioning Centre – led by the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation and the University of Birmingham, in collaboration with other research partners. Alongside the FCDO and UKRI, the centre leads the Research Secondment and Academic Advisory Programme. An annual review tracks the performance of the programme against key outcomes and impacts and these are scored according to an alphabetic grading system. ⁴⁷ Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, ‘Research Secondment and Academic Advisory Programme’, GOV.UK, (no date) retrieved 8 June 2026, https://devtracker.fcdo.gov.uk/programme/GB-GOV-1-301290/documents

Departments should consider setting up pilot secondment schemes, which should be managed by dedicated officials in the model of the EEP who can also embed evaluation into secondment programmes.

Departments can bring secondees into government through schemes managed by external partners 

While the majority of departments have not established their own secondment schemes, another less onerous option for departments is to use secondment infrastructure that external partners such as funding bodies and learned societies have set up – many departments are making good use of such schemes. In 2021, the ESRC piloted an 18-month policy fellowship scheme aimed at early- to mid-career researchers. The initial cohort had 25 fellows and precipitated the larger UKRI policy fellowship schemes in 2023 and 2025; across the three cohorts there have been 111 policy fellowships. ⁴⁸ UK Research and Innovation, ‘Policy fellows’, last updated 7 May 2026, retrieved 8 June 2026, www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/our-fellowship-opportunities/policy-fellows

Alongside funding bodies such the UKRI and its research councils, learned societies such as the Royal Society and the British Academy and individual universities have also developed schemes aimed at supporting academic secondees into government. Departments should be proactive in seeking out opportunities to participate in these kinds of secondment schemes.

The emergence of more structured secondment schemes and secondment infrastructure developed outside government has created a more robust suite of secondment opportunities for researchers in government. However, most departments still lack the kinds of secondment infrastructure seen at departments such as Defra and DSIT and they should seek to set up secondment schemes with adequate bureaucratic support.