Frequently Asked Questions
Who is EPAD for?
EPAD is for anyone living in Edinburgh and working professionally in the Performing Arts.
How can I access EPAD’s services?
Access to all of EPAD’s services is free to anyone living in Edinburgh and working professionally in the performing arts. You can find out about what events or opportunities we have coming up through our website, by subscribing to our mailing list, or by following us on Instagram or Facebook.
How much does it cost?
Nothing - all of our services are free.
Who runs EPAD?
EPAD is managed on a part-time basis by Lucy Mason, Nicholas Bone and Kate Taylor, find out more about them here.
EPAD is funded by City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) and receives in-kind support from many Edinburgh-based organisations, including Capital Theatres, Royal Lyceum Theatre, Scottish Storytelling Centre and Traverse Theatre.
Why does EPAD use random selection for some opportunities?
EPAD is founded on a principle of equity and open access. We try to make it as simple as possible for people to access our services, so we only have two criteria: that you live in the City of Edinburgh Council area and work professionally in the performing arts. Anyone who meets these criteria can come to our events, attend our surgeries, join us for co-working and all the other opportunities we offer. We make no judgments about people’s work or experience; we aim to be as open and non-hierarchical as we can and our opportunities are generally offered on a first-come, first served basis with a need for minimal information to be provided.
Sometimes we offer opportunities that require additional criteria - for example, experience in a particular field, such as theatre for young people - which means we need to ask for more information in order to assess if applicants are eligible.
When it is likely that there will be a high level of applications for a small number of places - for example, on our Supported Residency programme, we use random selection to make the final selection. On these occasions we will ask for enough information to enable us to assess if applicants meet all the criteria. The final selection is made using a random number generator from all applications that meet the criteria. When we have targets for specific draw pools - for example to ensure that the overall group reflects Scotland’s demographic profile - we stage the selection in order to meet these targets
The use of Random Selection in making decisions has become more widespread in recent years, and a useful guide has been published by the Jerwood Foundation and Watershed, available to download here. It outlines three reasons for using random selection:
• Less LABOUR for everyone involved
• FAIRNESS for applicants
• A better VARIETY of outcomes
Random Selection means less information is required from applicants and requires less administration from our end. EPAD is a very small, part-time operation so less administration frees us up to do more direct work with our users.
All applications which meet the criteria are treated equally and there is no opportunity for unconscious bias to be part of the decision-making process, leading to a fairer outcome.
Random selection means that less-conventional applications are equally likely to be selected as more conventional ones, and removes the temptation for applicants to play it safe.
We appreciate that in a random selection some applicants may feel that their ideas are not being given enough detailed attention. This is offset by those who value the time saved in being asked for less, more targeted, information.
We hope that this is a helpful summary of why we use random selection; if you have any further questions or concerns, please email us at mail@epad.org.uk.
How long has EPAD been running?
EPAD was created in 2015, implementing recommendations made by Lucy Mason in a report commissioned in 2014 by Capital Theatres and funded by City of Edinburgh Council. You can read the report here: Pilot Project – Final Report.
If you would like to know more about EPAD, please contact us or join our mailing list.