Send us an idea
before it’s ready.
The hardest part of doing original work as a student is finding someone serious to read your draft. Early-Stage Feedback is GQC’s free, year-round critique service. Submit any time, in any language we can read — we’ll return a written response within fourteen days.
The point of getting feedback early.
Most of the work in a GQC entry is decided before anyone presses submit: the choice of question, the framing of the user, the methods used. By the time a project reaches a judging panel, those decisions are usually too cemented to change. Early-Stage Feedback exists to apply pressure where it’s still useful.
You can use the service without ever entering GQC. You don’t have to be on a team yet. Some of the strongest cohorts we’ve seen began as a single student who sent in a draft brief in October and built a team off the back of the critique.
Three steps.
One page is plenty. Tell us the problem you’re thinking about, who it affects, and what you’ve tried so far. A scrappy Google Doc is better than a polished PDF.
One subject-matter expert close to the problem area, one generalist who can challenge framing. They read independently — no consensus required.
Each runs roughly 400–600 words. We aim for fourteen days. You decide what to do with the advice — we don’t expect or require a reply, and submitting doesn’t commit you to entering GQC.
A one-page brief, a two-page reply, no score.
Upload a single page: problem, who is affected, what you have already tried, what you think you will build. You will receive a two-page critique mapped loosely to the rubric — clarity, evidence gaps, feasibility, ethics flags — signed by one reviewer. There is no score. The reviewer will not sit on your city jury. Using the service does not raise or lower shortlisting odds; not using it does not count against you.
What good looks like in the one-pager is the same as in the application brief, only shorter. Name a place. Do not attach a deck. Do not ask us to “validate the startup.” Ask us where the argument is thin. Turnaround is ten working days during the open window (2 March–22 May). After the deadline the desk closes; the Learning Experience then takes over for those who are shortlisted.
This is not a pre-interview, not a scholarship committee, and not legal advice. If the page raises a safeguarding or research-ethics issue, we will say so and point you to the relevant rule rather than workshop the product.