My winning proposal: Knowing your partners is the cornerstone

Mechanical engineer Seamus Garvey tells Ben Upton what aspects of partnership and collaboration to emphasise when applying for an EPSRC Prosperity Partnership grant.

Seamus’s top tips

• Have a strong pre-existing relationship with your partners, and a shared vision, and emphasise this in your application.
• Prepare thoroughly for a breadth of interview questions, including on non-technical subjects, and be sure to hone your answers until they are succinct.
• Ensure you keep up regular communication between the partners and meet face-to-face for rehearsal interviews.

Seamus Garvey is a professor of dynamics and director of the Rolls-Royce university technology centre in gas turbine transmission systems at the University of Nottingham. In November 2017, he was part of a winning bid for more than £6 million from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Prosperity Partnership’s second call.