Early and Mid-Career Researchers (EMCRs) are eager to contribute to science for policy interfaces, offering diverse perspectives, interdisciplinary insight, and sustained analytical capacity. Yet structures and guidance enabling effective engagement are not always in place.

This scoping review responds to growing recognition that approaches to EMCR capability building for policy engagement are diverse and unevenly aligned. Although many initiatives exist, they vary widely in scope, duration and assumptions about what EMCRs need to engage effectively.

The review, authored by Dr Katie Kilian synthesises academic and grey literature that examines:

• how EMCR capability building for policy engagement is conceptualised and delivered;
• the types of support mechanisms currently available across different contexts;
• the evidence used to inform, justify or assess these initiatives; and
• the conditions under which EMCR engagement is enabled, constrained or discouraged.

The review pays particular attention to the structural dimensions of EMCR capability building. Institutional incentives, career structures, recognition practices, workload pressures and perceptions of risk all shape whether EMCRs are able to engage with policy and decision-making processes. Rather than only asking how EMCRs can be better prepared, it also examines how organisations, funders and science advice systems shape opportunities for engagement, sometimes in uneven or unintended ways.

Explore the full scoping review — download the report from the right-hand column –>