Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

How the sandpit format works
Potential cooperation partners are brought together 
in the idea development phase in the “sandpits”. In-
terested parties apply with their motivation letter 
and their potential solutions to the question of the 
call for proposals and are selected by a jury to take 
part in an Ideas Lab lasting several days. This is 
where the interdisciplinary and heterogeneous group 
meets for the first time. In an iterative process led by 
moderators, the participants get together in teams 
where they develop ideas along the lines of the 
question at the heart of the call for proposals. They 
plan collaborations, present projects, receive feed-
back and finally submit a short funding application at 
the end of the Ideas Lab. The Ideas Lab aims to facil-
itate new forms of cooperation and new interdisci-
plinary approaches. Recommendations for the proj-
ects submitted are made at the end of the event by 
the on-site jury, which took on the role of mentors 
during the event.
The pilot tender and the process: an overview
The programme’s pilot call for proposals was launched 
in April 2018 for the challenge “Human 4.0? – The 
Future of Collaboration between Humans and Ma-
chines”, which also covered the social implications in 
the context of digitisation of the world of work. The 
call for proposals was aimed both at collaborative 
research performing organisations and at research-
ers from commercial companies. A total of 112 indi-
viduals applied for the pilot call for proposals, 30 of 
whom were selected to participate in the Ideas Lab 
because they i) showed the potential to develop new 
ideas on the problem posed, ii) brought relevant ex-
pertise with them and could be expected to work 
together across disciplinary boundaries, iii) demon-
strated teamwork skills, and iv) were also able to ex-
plain their research to laypersons. The five-day work-
shop was held in September 2018 and included an 
introduction phase, a methodology/creative phase, a 

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