The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

I am really starting to get a feel for what the ESCAPE project can achieve now that I have had a chance to meet people in other schools and to get their input on what the project will mean for them. I meet last week with Peter Stanbury - a senior member of the School of Life Sciences in a similar way that Mark & I met with representatives of the Business School. In each case they could see a real need for the project and anticipated its benefits. In each case we were welcomed with offers of all the help and access that we would need to help make the project a success. In many cases they were able to show how it dovetailed with work that had already being going on in their schools to address issues that they were aware of. It will be interesting to see how we can help and influence each other.

At the moment I am involved in writing up part of the project plan. Working on the workpackages aspect of the plan made me think of how in practice we will work with the stakeholders in the schools. Whatever model of working we adopt I am confident - having met with the schools -that we will get all the support, encouragement and cooperation we need. This is one of the key foundations for successthat the project needs - we are building on these initial meetings with a further series of meetings - snow permitting- this week.