OPSS Research Fellowship Scheme

What happens when academic researchers bring fresh thinking to real-world product safety challenges?

The OPSS Research Fellowship Scheme 2025-26 brought specialist academic expertise into OPSS to strengthen evidence, test new thinking and help us respond to complex product safety challenges. Designed as a two-way exchange, it gave researchers the chance to apply their knowledge in a policy and regulatory setting, supporting the protection of UK consumers and responsible businesses.

As the first placements come to an end, the Fellows reflect on their work, what they learned and the value of closer collaboration between academia and government.

Meet the Fellows

Dr Robert Bray, Fire Safety Engineer and Flammability Laboratory Secondee

Dr Tom Dolan, Systems Thinking Researcher and Anticipating Future Product Risks Secondee

Improving flammability evidence and testing

Dr Robert Bray (Rob), is a Fire Safety Engineer at Arup whose background spans firefighting and academia, including a PhD at Ulster University. During his fellowship, Rob worked in the OPSS flammability laboratory to improve how technical evidence is produced, interpreted and communicated for product safety and enforcement.

Rob helped optimise fire test outputs and encouraged colleagues to look beyond the outcome of standardised tests to consider a wider evidence base when evaluating product safety. He collaborated with stakeholders, led the commissioning of new technical equipment and upskilled the team on its use.

He also advised on technical guidance, policy evaluation and future test planning. Together this work strengthened the quality and quantity of technical evidence available to support enforcement and regulatory understanding. Rob reflected that:

“This fellowship offered an opportunity to optimise fire test outputs, both for novel insights and regulatory conformity, and I found this to be the most interesting part of my role, there was a healthy dose of day-to-day problem solving when unexpected challenges appeared, which I also found really engaging.”

Anticipating Future Product Risks

Tom Dolan, a researcher at UKCRIC Services, with a background in infrastructure and applying systems thinking to emerging challenges such as climate change, explored how OPSS could use systems thinking to anticipate future product-related harm. Rather than looking only at individual products, his work considered how factors such as supply chains, design choices, market pressures, ownership, use and product lifecycles can combine to create emerging risks.

Tom developed an integrated logic model and guiding principles, which sit within a framework for considering product regulation in its economic, political and social context, both local and global. This work could help OPSS identify the underlying conditions in which product related harm emerges and consider where regulatory action may have greatest impact.

What the Fellows took from the secondment

For the Fellows, the scheme offered insight into how research is used in government and how academic expertise can be translated into useful outputs for Civil Service colleagues. Rob said the placement shaped how he communicates research and reinforced the importance of understanding how government gathers evidence and drives change.

Tom highlighted the value of engaging widely, listening carefully and explaining research in language that works for policy and regulatory audiences. Reflecting on the Fellowship, he said:

“The Fellowship enabled a mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge, experience and perspectives between the researcher (me) and civil service colleagues.”

Future Fellowship opportunities

The OPSS Research Fellowship Scheme offers a supportive route to apply specialist expertise in government. Fellows work with engaged colleagues, test ideas in a real regulatory setting and produce outputs that can shape future evidence, policy thinking and practice.

Both Fellows said the unfamiliar organisational structure initially felt daunting, but supportive teams helped them settle. Rob said:

“The team I was working with were so friendly and accommodating that I quickly became familiar with the department and felt empowered at OPSS to engage with others beyond the sphere of my typical role.”

Tom also valued the support from his line manager and team, who were “genuinely interested, supportive, and asked insightful questions to shape my thinking.” He was pleased to see how much OPSS colleagues value research and welcomed the growing interest in systems thinking across OPSS and government.

As Rob put it, the scheme has:

“amazing potential to apply novel ideas from academia using the influence and regulatory expertise of OPSS”.

For future Fellows, it is a chance to support safer products while seeing how evidence can make a tangible difference.

To hear more about the projects, join our research network or be notified about future Fellowship opportunities, please contact opss.research@businessandtrade.gov.uk.

https://opss.blog.gov.uk/2026/10/09/opss-research-fellowship-scheme/

seen at 18:30, 9 October in Office for Product Safety and Standards.