Warwick Economics researcher awarded Parliamentary Academic Fellowship
Warwick Economics researcher awarded Parliamentary Academic Fellowship
Wednesday 14 Jun 2017We are pleased to announce that one of our researchers has been awarded the Parliamentary Academic Fellowship.
The Parliamentary Academic Fellowship is a new scheme that offers academics the opportunity to work on projects in the House of Commons and House of Lords.
Dr Thijs Van Rens, Associate Professor of Economics, is working with the House of Commons Health Committee to scrutinise the Government’s Childhood Obesity Plan. This includes examining how effectively it has been implemented to date, and reviewing the evidence base on options to address childhood obesity that were not included in the original strategy.
The Parliamentary Academic Fellowship Scheme is organised by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology in collaboration with ESRC and EPSRC Impact Acceleration Accounts (IAAs). Six Fellowships linked to IAAs were awarded in total to academics from UK universities.
As well as enabling researchers to work on policy-relevant projects within Parliament, the scheme provides the opportunity to learn how research feeds into the policy-making process and to develop lasting connections with decision-makers.
Obesity is a huge time bomb, waiting to explode (or perhaps already exploding) in terms of health and health care costs. I believe there is an important economics angle to this problem.
I am very happy that the House of Commons Select Committee on Health shares this view and asked me, together with Oli Mytton, an MD from Cambridge, to assist them in scrutinising existing and possible new interventions to tackle the problem.
Dr Van Rens’ Fellowship is supported by the University of Warwick ESRC IAA.