Yesterday we spent a fairly large number of hours at the sift panel for the sandpit. We have been going through the 240 plus Expressions of Interest as individuals, but yesterday we met as a group of mentors and funders to select those who will attend. None of us have ever seen such a huge interest and selecting 30 from the 240 was always going to be a difficult and taxing process. Those of you who have filled them in know this, but for the rest of you.... the first page of the EoI covers the experience of the applicant and what they can bring to the sandpit in terms of expertise. The second page addresses the processes that we use in a sandpit. We have learned several things over the last few years. The first is that this second page effectively determines who will be successful in a sandpit. The second is that some applicants know this and spend time making their points. A complication of this sandpit is the wide range of expertise we need to assemble to address the issues in the area. We had to balance the numbers of "hard science" people, "soft science" people, designers and so on.
The bottom line is that we selected 33 people who will be hearing from the EPSRC in the next few days. Apologies to all those we didn't select. What we do now know is that this area is ripe for investment and there is a strong capability in the knowledge base. I suspect the EPSRC may well be thinking about whether to invest more... but then it's not my decision.
David
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