Dear all,

Thank you everyone who could make it to our meeting yesterday, it was nice seeing you all. Here is a recap of what was discussed for those of you who could not make it to the meeting.

As you know we received positive comments, but the proposal was rejected with a score of 73%. The rejection was not a surprise considering the high number of submissions, but the low score means that we cannot resubmit the same proposal again this year. So, the main question for yesterday’s meeting was:

• Should we improve the proposal at leisure and re-submit next year or should we drastically change the proposal and resubmit the new proposal already this year?

The general view in the meeting seemed to be that we should do both. We have formed a very nice and strong consortium that provides a good foundation for development of a new application.

Another topic of discussion was that since the standard Doctoral Network (DN) are highly competitive, perhaps we should opt to go for an Industrial Doctorate (DN-ID) proposal.

The submission statistics were:

- Doctoral Networks (standard DN): 920 proposals (86.3% of total)
- Industrial Doctorates (DN-ID): 64 proposals (6.0% of total)
- Joint Doctorates (DN-JD): 82 proposals (7.7% of total)

Based on this line of thinking, a few further questions arose.

1. What should the topic or core idea of the new application be?

A few ideas came up already as listed in this document. It was decided that we all take until the end of next week and think through potential directions and add some notes about our ideas in the shared document.

It would be great if we could find topics that interest us all, but this is not a must. Furthermore, there may be a topic for which we do not have the right expertise in the current consortium. This is also fine as we could approach others with the right profiles.

2. As we at HB have the management’s approval to continue with further development of the DIVERSE proposal, we will be happy to continue with its coordination and resubmission next year. Who would like to take on the coordination of the new proposal to be submitted this year? (we will all of course contribute to the writing) Please indicated your interest in the same document as mentioned above.

3. Depending on the proposed topics and if we go for a DN-ID proposal, who would be the industrial partners?

If you wish to create mind maps on Miro, we can use the same page as before, feel free to create new separate spaces on same page. I have also archived our earlier documents on Google Drive and have created a new subfolder for our new proposal. I have placed the call in the same folder. Please feel free to use these as you deem fit.

Please add your thoughts to the document above by the end of next week (end of May) to help us decide what the next steps should be.

Best regards,

Nasrine

Dear all,

Thank you everyone for responding to my doodle. Based on your feedback, Tuesday 21^st May at 10:00 CEST seems to be the best option, so please book that slot in your diaries.

Some of you, representing supporting organisations, have contacted me wondering if your presence is also required. You do not have to be there but you are most welcome to join if you so wish. This might be a good opportunity to meet the others in the group and contribute to the conversation and decisions, but purely up to you. We will of course continue to keep you informed.

Looking forward to seeing you again in May and best regards,

Nasrine