Exploited and demeaned. That’s how I felt after the Idcore interview day. Previously I had regarded interviews as learning opportunities. But the Idcore day was all downsides with no upside. The Times World University Rankings 2024 list Edinburgh 29 places behind Oxford and 22 places behind Imperial College London. More pertinently, the Times Climate Action Impact Rankings 2023 put Edinburgh at a humble no.73. This is 65 places behind the leading UK university. In April 2023 Idcore was short of applicants. It had one place left but no UK applicant to fill it. During an Idcore public event, an Idcore team member reached out to me and invited me to apply. I do not have a STEM degree. The Idcore CEO is called centre director. He assured me that as long as my math is good, that should be sufficient. Soon afterwards two further applicants materialised, both with STEM backgrounds. At this point I knew that I would not get the place. I should have withdrawn then. But I thought it would be interesting to meet the panel. I was wrong. Starting salaries in offshore renewables for graduates with a BSc are exceptionally high just now. A doctoral programme would need to add huge value to make it worthwhile to doctorands to subsist four years on a meagre stipend while their cohort earn big salaries in industry. Idcore does not look value focussed to me. Idcore is beholden to UK funders who insist that it works chiefly with UK industry partners. These sponsors operate in UK waters in local weather conditions. Doctorands who aim for a subsequent career in Asia or west coast US will struggle to apply uniquely British strategies in geographies where coastal constraints are entirely different. Even as a UK citizen I was surprised at the narrow geographic focus. To underscore its Britishness, Idcore supports the British monarchy. My transcripts are excellent. I emailed them to Idcore on the King’s coronation day. The centre director’s out of office told me that he was participating in volunteering work to celebrate the coronation. The interview day is time consuming. First thing in the morning there is a session with the centre director. It is supposedly optional. In reality the applicant needs to be present. Then there is the wait for the interview slot. At end of day there is a Q and A session, again labelled “optional”. When I excused myself for the first 20 minutes of Q and A, I got a thunderous frown. The centre director told us that 20% of placement sponsors go bankrupt. I would have wanted to know this before applying. Bankruptcies are traumatic to live through. They are preceded by months of insecurity and followed by desolation. Each year, two doctorands or more should expect to suffer this. After the bust, where do these doctorands go? This was not explained. From the start, the interview panel were disgruntled. The four interviewers looked unhappy to be there. The interview questions were predictable and commonplace. The key part of the interview day is a mandatory 8 minute presentation by the applicant. This is a clever way for the interviewers to get valuable information supplied free of charge by experienced applicants who frequently have substantial industry know how. The panel should consider giving back to such applicants, instead of this show of bad temper. Most remarkable was the interview feedback. As expected, I had not been selected. The centre director conceded that my presentation had been well researched and well delivered. It is hardly feasible that I had stumbled over the four mundane interview questions. How then did the panel manage to conjure up two long paragraphs of fault finding and put downs? The centre director certainly did not hold back in trying to demoralise me. The tirade ended in the sentence: “We expected more.” A panel so painfully short of applicants had better consider students’ expectations rather than boast about its own. Idcore tried to profile itself by giving exceptionally scathing feedback. Such zero sum games do not make for good academia. What would it be like to do a doctorate in this environment? What if a doctorand needs guidance from an academic supervisor? Would the supervisor make a show of irritation and emphasise the inadequacy of the doctorand? Based on my interview, such a four year gauntlet run is definitely on the cards.