New OPEN Visiting Fellow Policy Professional appointed at the Faculty
Alex Pykett has been appointed as a new OPEN Visiting Fellow Policy Professional with the History Faculty.
Alex is currently Deputy Head of China Department at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. He has previously been posted to New Delhi and Prague and has worked across a range of political and security issues, with a particular focus on Asia and Europe.
Alex is joining OPEN as a Visiting Fellow policy professional.
He is interested in new perspectives and research trends in history and he will be working principally with the History Faculty, but he will also be exploring interdisciplinary links that might inform contemporary foreign policy issues and policy-making in government.
As a Visiting Fellow, he is keen to look at how a closer understanding of government might assist established and aspiring academics, and how their work can benefit policy formation and organisational improvement in the civil service.
The six-month OPEN Visiting Fellowship offers policy professionals the opportunity to:
- develop a deeper understanding of the process for generating research and evidence in an academic setting; build a network of potential academic contributors working in relevant policy areas; and broaden subject matter expertise in a particular area of public policy.
- In addition to building a network of researchers, academics and collaborators across the University, Fellows and Host Departments will co-convene events in Oxford with the aim to build linkages with colleagues across UK government and civil service, local authorities and university departments.
Alex will be co-hosted at the Faculty by Dr Jennifer Altehenger and Professor Martin Conway.
Jennifer Altehenger is Associate Professor of Chinese History, and the Jessica Rawson Fellow in Modern Asian History at Merton College. Having started as a historian of modern Chinese law, she is now completing a project on the global history of light industry and design (from policy to manufacturing) in the People’s Republic of China. This work has involved collaborations with museum curators, industrial design professionals, and schools, thus giving her opportunities to connect with non-academic audiences.
Together with Martin Conway, she will co-host Alex’s fellowship at the History Faculty. This is a particularly important time for the faculty to host a policy professional with extensive knowledge of Asia and Europe. The faculty has expertise in a range of subjects – including, for example, global history, the history of international relations, security, law, the environment, science and medicine, etc. – and this fellowship will be a chance to explore how these fields might benefit from and contribute to policy formation. During the fellowship, the hosts will run workshops to introduce students and postholders to Alex’s work and the world of policy-making, and organise events to bring policy professionals and historians into conversation about how to build bridges between different kinds of expertise.
Martin Conway is Professor of Contemporary European History, and a fellow of Balliol College. His published work has covered different aspects of the socio-political history of twentieth-century Europe, including books on Catholic Politics, Political Legitimacy, and Democracy in Western Europe after 1945. He is currently working on a study of male citizenship in twentieth-century Europe.
As the co-host of Alex during his fellowship, Martin will be concerned to use this opportunity to strengthen links between the History Faculty and the FCDO at a time of rapidly evolving diplomatic and political contexts.
