Sandpits can develop cross-disciplinary projects, but funders need to be as open-minded as researchers

The research “sandpit”, where a cross-disciplinary group of academics and practitioners come together for a short time to create new projects around a given theme, is gaining ground as a way to foster innovation and creativity in research design. While sandpits can spark ideas for novel projects better suited to tackling grand challenges and urgent questions, research from Kate Maxwell, Paul Benneworth, and Martin Siefkes suggests that until funders are as open-minded as participating researchers are expected to be, the transformative potential of this method will not be realised.