Working at the intersection of academia and policy – Dr Harry Marshall & Dr George Warren

Published on 2 July 2025

Reflections from Harry Marshall, ACCESS Knowledge Exchange Fellow based at Forest Research and George Warren, another ACCESS Knowledge Exchange Fellow based at the Energy Demand Research Centre, on Harry’s time at ACCESS.

As an ACCESS Knowledge Exchange Fellow, I contributed to the design, execution, and analysis of a survey and interviews on interdisciplinary working and the benefits of environmental social science, as well as supporting key project outputs like the annotated bibliography, literature review, and the Environmental Social Science kNowledge Exchange Map of Opportunities (ESS NEMO).

Being part of the ACCESS team provided a valuable opportunity to observe and contribute to the intersection between academia and policy. It was particularly insightful to see how both sectors navigate different demands and pressures while collaborating on shared goals.

Overall, my time as a Knowledge Exchange Fellow has equipped me with a deep understanding of the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and how to maximise the potential for meaningful exchange between academic and policy communities. Importantly, I have met a great network of collaborators and peers with whom I hope to continue generating and developing ideas moving forward.

George Warren, another ACCESS Knowledge Exchange Fellow who worked with Harry, adds:

“His expertise and experience within a government arms-length body provided a unique perspective when developing our research and knowledge exchange agenda. His input also ensured that our outputs were tailored appropriately to the relevant audience, especially non-academic partners. Harry’s collaboration also ensured a very productive final year, having contributed to seven pieces of work. Harry’s final contribution to WP1 activities involved demonstrating the usefulness and functionality of a systems mapping tool we created, ESS NEMO, in a webinar. His calm and methodical explanation and approach were so helpful in ensuring that those tuning in could understand how useful the tool could be to them.”

Further resources:

  • Environmental Social Science: What is it and why do we need it? Report
  • In this short film, Harry talks about how he has applied ESS NEMO to his work at Forest Research