Placement background/ expected impact:
Overview: UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is looking for academic expertise to support the development of a new capability to understand health security futures and the implications potential futures scenarios may have for UKHSA and wider government, to inform future strategy and planning.
Background: Currently, much of the health security risk assessment in UK Government focuses on six-month to five-year threat horizon. This has benefits in providing actionable insights to inform immediate policy and capability decisions, but looking further into the future (15-20 years) offers the UK a strategic advantage in anticipating and mitigating emerging health security threats before they become critical. Futures analysis enables more proactive investment in research, infrastructure, and policy development, reducing the risk of being caught unprepared. Long-term foresight also supports better coordination across government, academia, and industry, fostering innovation and resilience. Ultimately, it strengthens national preparedness and helps safeguard public health, economic stability, and global leadership in health security.
UKHSA has recently worked with academic partners and stakeholders across government to understand areas of focus for future health security and has a number of recommendations for the strategic direction UKHSA and wider Government should take to mitigate risks and leverage opportunities.
We require an academic partner to develop a practical plan that helps UKHSA begin preparing for long-term health security threats, by translating academic foresight into actionable steps aligned with government policy and decision-making. This project presents an exciting opportunity for an academic to apply their expertise in health threats and foresight within a real- world policy context. This partnership will offer a unique chance to understand how UKHSA assesses risk, develops its strategic priorities, and makes decisions under uncertainty, with the opportunity to make a tangible impact across all these areas. The outcome will support UKHSA in shaping its strategic response to long-term health challenges, while fostering stronger links across Government and between academic research and public policy.
This placement will be within the All Hazards Intelligence (AHI) Situational Awareness team, which is currently responsible for developing the Health Security Risk Assessment which assesses risk over a six-month to five-year time period. The academic partner will be able to access expertise from the team and stakeholders across UKHSA more widely.
Expected impact and strategic fit: The outputs from this placement would be expected to have the following impacts, in line with UKHSA’s Chief Data Officer (CDO) Group strategic priorities:
- Informing health outcomes through threat analysis and assessment to enable response: This placement will set out a plan to extend the horizon of our current threat assessment capability, enabling more robust and anticipatory decision-making.
- The placement will help identify means to establishing secure public health digital and data capabilities for early warning and response systems for emerging threats.
- By translating long-term foresight into actionable planning, the project supports smarter, future-focused investment in surveillance and intelligence technologies, aligning with the CDO goal to lead investment in public health services to transform the UK’s approach to public health technology, surveillance and intelligence
- Helping to make the nation’s health secure and contribute to economic resilience: Early planning for long-term risks strengthens national resilience, reduces the cost of future crises, and supports the UK’s leadership in global health security.
Benefits for the placement holder:
- Real-world policy impact: Opportunity to apply academic foresight and health threat expertise in a government setting, with the potential to influence long-term public health security strategy, national preparedness and resilience.
- Strategic insight: Gain deep understanding of how UKHSA and wider government assess risk, set priorities, and make decisions under uncertainty.
- Cross-sector and interdisciplinary collaboration: Engage with stakeholders across government, academia, and industry, building valuable networks and professional relationships.
- Skill development: Enhance skills in futures analysis, strategic planning, stakeholder engagement, and policy translation—highly transferable across public health and policy roles.
- Career advancement: Strengthen CV with a high-profile placement that demonstrates ability to bridge academic research and public policy.
Outline of duties:
- Read, understand, and collate existing materials on health security futures (all previous UKHSA materials of relevance to be supplied at start of placement)
- Work with the AHI Situational Awareness team to understand internal (to UKHSA) and external (wider government, academia and industry) stakeholder landscape and agree an approach to stakeholder engagement
- Carry out stakeholder engagement to understand current capability, expert thinking, and good practice, to feed into Deliverable 1 (Gap and capability analysis)
- Develop forward plan for developing a futures capability (Deliverable 2), working with stakeholders across UKHSA to understand a feasible approach
- The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) is also initiating a Futures Thinking work programme; the work proposed here would link into the wider DHSC programme and the placement holder would be expected to liaise with the DHSC team.