MAKE FOR EDU - Submission process and official documents

This document describes the process of the MAKE committee to select MAKE projects at EPFL. When a project is selected by the MAKE committee, it benefits from financial support and access to resources for prototyping.

Two different committees are involved in the selection of MAKE interdisciplinary projects, with the following roles.

The operational committee:

• Following the projects throughout the year and providing support if necessary. The operational committee provides recommendations to the strategic committee.
• The operational committee can make recommendations to stop a project if safety issues are identified at anytime.
• The operational committee is composed of six members including representative of the VPT (durability), the BAA (associative affairs) and the CAPE (Support Teaching Center for transversal skills)

The strategic committee:

• Handling strategic questions, such as the long-term evolution of the project portfolio and repartition between sections
• The strategic committee is composed of members including representatives of the 5 faculties and the AVP-education

Two different categories of projects are elligible for funding:

• MAKE for EDU projects
• MAKE for Society projects

The access to infrastructure (makerspaces) is available to a wider variety of projects. To discover all the projects accessing EPFL makerspaces, you can visit this webpage.

These webpages are dedicated to provide the evaluation criteria for MAKE projects:

• MAKE FOR EDU - Requirements and evaluation criterias
• MAKE FOR SOCIETY - Requirements and evaluation criterias

The submitted project shall have a three-year scope with yearly objectives. To be selected as a MAKE project, the project promoters need to:

• Submit a full written submission and make a presentation to the strategic committee. Based on the document and the hearing, the strategic committee with select projects and give them conditional support for a three-year period. The submission and presentation to the strategic committee will be requested only every three years. In between, the project will be followed by the operational committee.
• Supported projects will have to provide an activity report and a summary video to be evaluated by the operational committee at the end of every year. The following information will be requested:
  • A written report
    • Project progress status and main achievements (comparing main objectives as presented at the beginning of the year with the year’s achievements.)
    • The three main objectives for upcoming academic year
    • Number of students involved and their sections
    • List of laboratories involved in supervising the students, particularly in the form of credited projects (bachelor/semester/master)
    • Description of efforts made to limit the ecological footprint of the project and measures implemented to integrate a sustainability dimension
  • A 3-minutes video to summarize the project evolution and the information of the written report

Besides the activity report and the video requested on a yearly basis, the operational committee will remain in contact with the project coordinator and student participants over the year to follow its evolution.

Role and responsibilities of the different MAKE committees are described in the next chapter.

• The strategic committee meets every year early July
• The operational committee collaborates with projects over the year. Members from this committee stay in close contact with projects needing support or improvement in a specific area (see under for more information)

The documents to submit early June (more details about deadline here), for a three year conditional support, are the following:

For MAKE for EDU projects

• Full MAKE submission (every three years)
• Activity report (every year)

For MAKE for Society projects

• Full MAKE submission (every three years)
• Activity report (every year)
• Impact strategy report (every year)

Responsibilities This committee has the following responsibilities:

• Following the projects’ developments over the year and ensuring they are feasible and properly supervised.
• Provide punctual supervision and support: meet with a MAKE project (the supervising team) to provide support when necessary. The operational committee will contact a project when they believe it could benefit from specific expertise(s) or if one or several aspects of the project need improvements.
  • Note: To avoid wasting time to already busy students, the operational committee will tailor each intervention to make it specific to a given project.

• Evaluating activity throughout the year (including yearly written activity report). The operational committee meets regularly to keep track of project activities. The operational committee provides recommendations to the strategic committee for renewing (or not) the funding of the projects in year two and three.
• Stopping a project in the event of a proven problem or safety issue for the students involved, the operational committee can any time recommend the stop of a project.

The operational committee will provide a summary of the supported project based on the yearly report and the contacts over the year to the strategic committee as recommendation for support renewal once a year.

Committee composition

• One representative the makerspaces SKIL and SPOT
• One representative of the VPA
• One student representative
• One representative of the CAPE (teaching support center) for transversal competences
• One representative of the VPT with expertise in sustainability
• One representative of the AVP-SAO (student affairs)
• The MAKE coordinators

Responsibilities This committee has the following responsibilities:

• Selecting new projects for a three-year period.
  • The project funding is conditional and must be validated every year, based on the operational committee report. (The three-year scope allows to give the students and Professors a longer-term scope needed to settle such ambitious projects and the yearly review allows to take action if the project is not matching expectations.)
• Stopping a project if the quality declines and does not match EPFL standards (in terms of supervision and/or feasibility) – based on recommendations provided by the operational committee
• Taking strategic decisions and equilibrating the project portfolio to match EPFL objectives (cover various scientific topics) and project representativity to ensure (among other things) equity between sections.

Committee composition

• One member from each faculty (x5)
• One pedagogical expert
• AVP-education