For the 200th episode I recorded live at a Brussels meetup, joined by Angela (Executive Director, Aspire—private partner of Processes4Planet) and Thomas Brent (Communications, CERN; formerly Science|Business). We reflect on what the podcast has meant to guests and listeners, why long-form audio creates space to explain complex work, and the human side of EU projects—the stress cycles, post-submission crashes and the value of honest conversations the community rarely has in public. We also look back on the Widening mini-series and why bringing diverse voices together matters.

Then we turn to the road ahead: industrial competitiveness and the case for being bolder in Europe—supporting scale-up to TRL 8, enabling CAPEX, and reducing fragmentation across national schemes. We debate simplification vs. lump sums, the reality that AI will raise proposal volumes, and why unity of approach beats 27 parallel systems. Finally, I share the backstory of starting The Grant and why I’m building a community first, alongside new services like proposal scouting to help teams find credible consortia fast.

Time codes:

00:01:50 Introduction

00:05:26 Fly in