KI tries to stay in touch with the scientists and academics who’ve come through our events, to track the progress of their projects, monitor the impact of the Sandpit (a.k.a. Ideas Lab) and how it accelerates scientific innovation and also just to hear from participants, with some time to reflect, about their experience at our workshops. Here’s another Sandpit tale, following up on two projects that we’ve had the privilege of midwifing in the last few years.
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Knowinnovation has been facilitating Sandpits and Ideas Labs for a number of years, and this has has given us the opportunity to witness the emergence of some fascinating science. In many ways, KI is like a midwife, creating an open environment for different perspectives to collide, which leads to new questions that ultimately provoke new ideas for innovative research. We get to see all these ideas come to life, but then what? Lately we’ve been trying to find out.

In December of 2008, KI facilitated the Digital Economy Sandpit, a 5-day event sponsored by the EPSRC and the TSB. An unusual point about that Sandpit merits mention: every proposal was strong enough to be funded and all the participants left with at least one role in a funded project. Keep reading »

So much depends on getting the right people in the room. A workshop designed to produce innovative outcome can fail – even with the perfect agenda design and the most astute facilitators – if the people who’ve been assembled don’t have the right spirit and motivation to help it succeed.  But how do you get the right minds in the right place?

Bharat Maldé is an organisational psychologist who works closely with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the first proponent of the Sandpit process.  We believe his guidance is critical to the success of these workshops, which is why we asked him to talk about his experience working with the EPSRC and other scientific research organizations, screening applicants for the intense Sandpit event. Keep reading »

A recent Sandpit on the topic of energy efficiency gave us reason to pause and consider the carbon output of our own work. Given that we travel to hotels or meeting venues to work with our clients, and that very often the people we work with are collected from far-flung locations to come together for innovation workshops and sessions, it dawned on us we might be churning out a fair amount of CO2. Keep reading »

At lunch, the participants seemed lighter, relieved. Their 10-minute final pitches for funding behind them, the weight of the week’s work had been shed. There was nothing to do but wait for the assessment team to finish their deliberations and in the meantime get a bite to eat and socialise with the others in the group, new colleagues who just four days ago were perfect strangers. This is what Fridays are like at a Sandpit.

Last week, 27 people assembled at a conference hotel in Bath Spa, UK, to try their luck at getting funding to do research on user-centered design for energy efficiency in buildings. Their backgrounds were varied; a deliberate attempt was made to invite participants from a broad spectrum of academic and business backgrounds. Participants applied to attend, which means they were prepared to clear a five full days from their schedules and throw their lots in with a group of people they didn’t know, but with whom they’d have to partner in order to get funded. The amount of money on the table: up to 2 million sterling. Keep reading »