Charlotte Claussen
Published 11th July 2025
We have given a lot of thought to how we can make sure that everyone gets a fair and unbiased assessment when they send in a proposal for TCUK. It’s hard to eliminate bias, in particular the biases we’re unaware of. For us, this challenge makes it even more important that we try our very best.
TCUK has always had a broad reviewer panel of ISTC members to make sure that proposal selection doesn’t reflect one or two people’s personal preferences. And we continuously evaluate our process to keep improving.
In recent years, we have made the following changes:
- We have implemented blind reviews.
- We have defined criteria for assessing the quality of each proposal individually, on its own merits.
- We review the assessment criteria every year.
- The new proposal submission forms are comprehensive to make sure that we have all the information we need to make a fair assessment.
- We have separated assessment of each proposal’s quality from considerations about what the final programme will look like. We have a two-stage process: In the first stage we assess proposals individually, and in the second stage we put together a coherent programme based on the best of the proposals.
- We recruit proposal reviewers with diversity in mind.
Do you think we can do better?
There is still time to apply to join the proposal review committee.
You can also join our wider volunteer team and work closely with the TCUK core team and the review committee. Send us an email at tcuk@istc.org.uk.
Take part in TCUK25
Take part in selecting the best proposals and putting together an inspiring, varied, and coherent programme. Apply to join the proposal review committee.
Join our volunteer team. To sign up or ask questions, email us at tcuk@istc.org.uk.
Present or run a workshop at TCUK25. Find full details under the Call for Proposals section of the TCUK page.