Scottish Parliament Academic Fellowship Scheme

Programme to enable academics to work on projects to inform the Scottish Parliament on issues of strategic and national importance.

The Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) manages the Scottish Parliament Academic Fellowship Scheme to enable academics to work on projects and audits that will inform and support the Scottish Parliament in its role to scrutinise legislation and debate issues of national importance. SPICe provides impartial analysis and information to MSPs of all political parties and to parliamentary committees.

The aims of the scheme are to:

• Provide the Parliament with specialised resources which allow it to undertake and communicate analysis which would otherwise not be possible
• Increase the use of academic knowledge, skills and research within the Parliament
• Promote knowledge and understanding of the Parliament within the academic sector

Fellows may apply to work on a project specified by Parliament staff (a Stream 1 project) or may propose a project via the open call (a Stream 2 project) on any topic which is relevant to parliamentary business, in particular original, analytical or primary research.

Project outputs and expectations of the fellow include:

• Production of a SPICe output (normally a short written briefing and a blog) that is separate to any academic publications produced based on work conducted during the fellowship
• Presentation of the work internally in the Parliament (eg to a parliamentary committee or at a seminar or other event)
• Join a community of academics that SPICe may access in the future