Professor Maisuria was shortlisted for two Parliamentary awards for his work as a Fellow preparing Parliament for the General Election.
In 2022, Alpesh Maisuria, UWE Bristol’s Professor of Education Policy, was awarded a Parliamentary Academic Fellowship (PAF) in the UK Parliament. The PAF is administered by Parliament’s Knowledge Exchange Unit with the objective of fostering closer relations between academic researchers and Parliament.
The PAF has enabled Professor Maisuria to work in the House of Commons Library as an education subject specialist. His work has entailed writing impartial policy briefings for politicians. These briefings are also publicly available and widely used by journalists. The experience is being used to develop a toolkit for academics to make their research more usable for those who write such briefings.
The House of Commons Library is more than a 200-year-old space filled with books, journals, artefacts, and subscriptions; it also offers a confidential enquiries service to all MPs, irrespective of Party, to source research and information about any parliamentary business they are engaged with. Enquiries commonly relate to a constituency matter, material for a speech, or preparation for a debate. Working on confidential enquiries has been a fascinating element of the experience and reveals the wide range of issues that MPs are expected to deal with.
Professor Maisuria has also worked as an Advisor and briefing writer for Ministerial sessions of the Education Select Committee. He has worked in this capacity for inquiries into math-to-18, and teacher retention, recruitment, and training. Select Committees serve a crucial function for scrutiny of the government’s performance. The work that goes into each meeting is extensive and diverse. There are meetings with the Committee chair to find their preferred steer of the meeting, meetings with government advisors who will prepare the Minister to ensure they can give a productive reply, preparing the media for their coverage, and working with the MPs who sit on the committee to ensure that the questions on the prepared brief are understood. The hard work is rewarded when the Chair calls “order, order” and the television cameras start rolling.
Perhaps the most unique experience of being in the ‘Westminster bubble’ is during a General Election. This year, an extraordinary 335 new MPs were returned for the first new government in 14 years. After 12 hours of training, Professor Maisuria was a New Members Buddy, working one-on-one with two new MPs. The new MPs are given an intense induction to being an MP, which includes procedural matters, Commons Chamber etiquette (e.g., bobbing and unparliamentary language), security and welfare, the behaviour code, and much more – the induction takes hours. Being an MP is challenging because of the variety and complexity of the work involved.
Former Prime Minister Harold Wilson observed that “a week is a long time in politics.” By July 2025, when the Fellowship will finish, there will have been at least five education secretaries, four PMs, and two monarchs. Being in Westminster during this time has been unique!
Alpesh Maisuria will present at the event, “Lessons from working with policymakers” 31 January 2025, 10-11am via Teams. Contact researchevents@uwe.ac.uk for more information.
He will also talk about the Fellowship at the College for Health, Science and Society Impact Showcase which will be held at EP1, Frenchay Campus, on 13 February 2025, (09:15-13:30). Book your place.
He can be contacted for further information about any aspect of this Fellowship, alpesh.maisuria@uwe.ac.uk