The British Academy invited applications for participants in international virtual sandpits to take place in February 2021. Participation was open to researchers based in the UK and internationally across the whole range of the humanities and social sciences. The Academy was keen to ensure that the diversity of the humanities and social sciences is represented at the virtual sandpits.

The Academy wished to encourage early career researchers in the humanities and social sciences to participate and therefore will look to ensure there would be significant representation at the sandpits from these scholars.

The virtual sandpits were framed around the themes of ‘Just Transitions’, ‘Global (Dis)Order’, and ‘What is a good city?’. Through these virtual sandpits the Academy wished to engender new thinking, develop interdisciplinary collaborations, and further international engagement with a particular international policy and practice focus.

There were three virtual sandpits related to the above themes. Each sandpit had three sessions of a maximum of two hours each. The sessions took place on separate days in February 2021. Participants needed to be available for the three sessions. There was additional time required for offline working. Participants applied to attend the sandpit related to a specific theme, in Mirian's case was What is a good city.

Out of this engagement, Mirian has contributed to two funding proposals, and both of them have been awarded.