IMPACT & INFLUENCE: Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) – approved projects and long list

POST carries out horizon-scanning to anticipate issues of science and technology that are likely to impact on policy. At Board meetings, POST advisers present a shortlist of topics for discussion. These projects were approved by the POST board but work has not yet started. If you would like to contribute or find out more at this stage please email them. POST continuously assesses issues that are of importance to Parliament and is now publishing its longlist online. The list sets out the topic areas of possible parliamentary interest identified under nine different category headings (Agriculture, Fisheries, Food and Forestry; Crime; Defence; Education and Skills; Energy; Environment; Health; ICT and Robotics; and, Transport and Infrastructure). Where relevant it will inform the deliberations of the POST Board on POST’s future work programme until it is updated or replaced by future horizon scanning activities.

What does this mean? There may be future POST briefing notes on these topics, which researchers could contribute to. If this is of interest to researchers, then please do highlight relevant expertise and/or pieces of evidence to POST. Download Topics of Interest 2018.

From a GRP Perspective, the following areas might have relevance:

Transport and Infrastructure

o Realising the social benefits of smart cities

o The rise of autonomous transport

o Building information management (BIM)

o Electric vehicle infrastructure

o Key innovations for making cities resilient

o Digitising rail technology