The seed is planted...

Grant money was up for grabs within the Faculty of Life Sciences for funding a range of things... including engaging the public in science... the maximum grant was £10K.

...a few ping ponged emails later and Stuart Allan (Faculty of Life Sciences), Ellen Poliakoff (Faculty of Pscychological Sciences) and i were meeting up to think about writing a joint proposal... it had to be in by the 15th October! I already had a few ideas for making engaging in science with the public easier on the scientists who always complain of being too busy - one for a film project, 'Why science?' to explore why people had taken up science in the first place and another a photography project documenting the ordinary and extraordinary things scientists across the spectrum of science subjects (from plant biology to zoology to particle physics and chemistry) get up to in a day because lots of people i know are always asking 'yes but what do scientists actually do behind closed doors'. To this we added 'How Science' a mentoring scheme for pupils and mapped out a framework for monitoring and evaluating the project. We decided to go for the full £10K.

Buzzing with ideas after this first meeting i retreated to the library with my laptop and wrote the first draft in a couple of hours - amazing what the pressure of a deadline can do - it had to be two pages. It was just over. I emailed it off to my colleagues and Stuart tweaked it down to the required length - the man works wonders with margins!

We submitted the application by email and waited...