From Sustainability to Policy: Reflections from a CPP Student Intern
Published: 14 July 2025
14 July 2025: Hannah Ulloa (she/her) is completing an MSc in the Earth Futures: Environments, Communities, and Relationships course at the University of Glasgow. In this blog, she shares her experience as an intern for the Centre for Public Policy.
The Centre for Public Policy at the University of Glasgow is a well-established but growing office, with a big vision and a highly skilled and passionate team – this was my impression in the first few moments of my candidate interview. After four months with the Centre, I am glad to say this was confirmed multiple times over.
As the Events and Engagement intern, I worked directly with Communications and Policy Engagement Leads Jen Chambers and Kimberley Somerside to support a range of communications and events. This included the website, blog, photography and video, Bluesky and LinkedIn content, and the UofG Spotlight podcast. On any given day, I had the opportunity to sharpen my skills as well as learn from University expertise on bridge-building between research and policy.
One of the most impactful experiences involved supporting the launch of the CPP’s Early Career Researchers’ Network (ECRN). I was tasked with creating a short video to highlight the purpose and vision for the network. I spoke with early career researchers from across the University as well as the CPP Research Associates launching the network, learning about the new ways ECRs are seeking to work together and learn from each other to more effectively engage with policy.
Throughout the internship, I also had the chance to interact with leading researchers and policymakers on issues directly relevant to my academic and professional career. This included hearing from Head of the UK Government’s Mission Control for Clean Energy 2030 Chris Stark about the UK’s energy targets, and Professor Kezia Dugdale, CPP Associate Director and former Scottish MP, in a Policy Brief Writing workshop. In addition to improving my understanding of the climate policy landscape of Scotland and the UK, I gained insight into real-world processes of engaging policy through research.
In deciding to pursue a master’s at this stage in my career, my primary goal has been to expand my practitioner experience to first-hand understanding of the relationships, and potential gaps, between research and policy in addressing climate change. My experience in this internship has underscored the importance of communications and relationships when making these connections.
To be effective, even the best research must be understood by policymakers, and even the best policy processes must be adaptive to new understandings of the research. There isn’t always a set process, and the skills to navigate these changes are vital. The work of strategic communications to support this process is incredibly valuable.
Moving forward, I hope to continue working at this nexus of policy, practice, and research to contribute to more effective climate policy and implementation. I am deeply grateful to the team at the Centre for Public Policy for creating a space where I was able to bring my skills and experience to a new level of professionalism and clarity.
Centre for Public Policy Interns provide hugely valuable contributions to the Centre’s work, and we regularly offer internship opportunities to University of Glasgow students through the UofG Student Opportunities Hub. Future opportunities will be advertised to students through the Hub.
First published: 14 July 2025