What is it?
A research sandpit is an intensive, interactive workshop designed to inspire and produce radically innovative and multi-disciplinary research proposals. Participants from a diverse range of disciplines come together in a creative, free-thinking environment and immerse themselves in a collaborative process around a critical global challenge…. It’s also a lot of fun!

We will take on a challenge that has been identified and inspired by current global and topical issues which require researchers to collaborate across disciplines for potential solutions. 

Why to do it?
Being able to communicate the potential impact of your research to a multidisciplinary audience can only enhance disciplinary excellence. After all, if we’re always talking to the same people, we’re not likely to find new things to say, so bring your perspective to the debate. Global challenges can’t be solved by one discipline alone, so this is a forum for transdisciplinary debate and dialogue that will allow you to have different conversations about the value and potential impact of your research with different people; it’ll also give you a taster of producing the interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary research proposal that all Research Councils want to see. 

What will it involve? 
You will be working in cross-school teams to devise an interdisciplinary research project that is seeking to achieve genuine impact beyond the HEI sector. At the end of the session, each team will present their research proposal to an academic panel, and a winning proposal will be chosen.