{"id":197,"date":"2021-03-17T14:06:31","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T14:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/the-forum\/?p=197"},"modified":"2021-04-14T13:56:43","modified_gmt":"2021-04-14T13:56:43","slug":"my-experience-of-pairing-with-lord-patel-chair-of-the-lords-science-tech-committee-on-the-royal-society-pairing-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/the-forum\/2021\/03\/17\/my-experience-of-pairing-with-lord-patel-chair-of-the-lords-science-tech-committee-on-the-royal-society-pairing-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Royal Society Pairing Scheme: The joint role of scientists and politicians to build a fairer society"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By Dr Marta Varela, Research Fellow, National Heart &amp; Lung Institute<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I had the privilege of joining the virtual version of the Royal Society Pairing Scheme in March 2021. The scheme gives policymakers and research scientists an opportunity to experience each other\u2019s worlds.<\/p>\n<p>I was paired with Lord Patel, chair of the Lords Science and Technology Select Committee, and it was an absolute pleasure to interact with him and his staff and to have a behind the scenes look at how the select committee operates.<\/p>\n<p>I was very impressed with the amount and depth of scientific evidence the committee considers for each topic and with their interesting way of operating. Besides the evidence panels where they ask expert witnesses (usually scientists) for their views, I was surprised to see they have a more behind the scenes scientific advisor (yet another scientist!) to provide all round views on the topic and draw their attention to specific issues.<\/p>\n<p>The scheme also involved discussions with a range of parliamentarians from all political colours interested in science. It was encouraging to realise how eager they were to listen to scientists\u2019 views on a variety of topics, not all related to hard science. In one of the sessions, for example, we debated at length issues related to science funding and the training and career progression of scientists.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_198\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-198\" style=\"width: 187px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"187\" height=\"250\" class=\"wp-image-198 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/the-forum\/files\/2021\/03\/marta-varela.jpg\" alt=\"Marta Varela\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-198\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Marta is Research Fellow at the National Heart &amp; Lung Institute<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I ended the week with a strong awareness of the complementary roles scientists and politicians play in bringing about a more prosperous and fair society for all. We make the scientific discoveries to enable societal progress; politicians shape the socio-economic conditions in which the discoveries take place and how they can benefit society. To fulfil our joint aim we need to keep communicating.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dr Marta Varela is Research Fellow at Imperial\u2019s National Heart &amp; Lung Institute. Marta<\/em> <em>is mostly interested in understanding and improving the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias. For this, she uses MRI, artificial intelligence and digital twins of the heart.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Dr Marta Varela, Research Fellow, National Heart &amp; Lung Institute I had the privilege of joining the virtual version of the Royal Society Pairing Scheme in March 2021. The scheme gives policymakers and research scientists an opportunity to experience each other\u2019s worlds. I was paired with Lord Patel, chair of the Lords Science and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1393,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[301891],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy-engagement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/the-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/the-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/the-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/the-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1393"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/the-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/the-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/the-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/the-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/the-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/the-forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}