The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship is a programme of overseas research grants in the UK. The grants support UK citizens to travel the world in search of innovative solutions for today’s most pressing problems. Each year the programme makes awards which support outstanding individuals to travel for 4-8 weeks, anywhere in the world, researching a topic of their choice among global leaders in their field.
Majella McCloskey, Senior Manager in CES Belfast office has been awarded one of this year’s fellowships. Majella has always had a strong interest in evidence informed policy making, and the Fellowship will support her to travel to the US, Canada and South Africa to explore and learn about evidence informed policy making at national government level.
The Programme emphasises practical, real life application of learning rather than academic research. Learning will inform CES’s work with policy makers in Northern Ireland, and Majella is establishing an advisory group to help share and embed learning within CES and more widely across policy makers.
Speaking about the Fellowship, Majella said:
“I hope to explore how divided or contested societies have used evidence to inform their policy making process. I hope to bring this back to Northern Ireland and to try to promote a framework of evidence-informed policy making going forward."
