Small firms or freelancers working on projects that use technology in innovative and creative ways are being encouraged to apply for funding of up to £5,000 under a new scheme.
Launched by The Studio at Palace Yard Mews, Bath Spa University’s city-centre research and innovation hub, The Studio Innovation Fund aims to support freelancers, micro-businesses, social enterprises and third sector organisations to progress their creative technology project ideas.
Backed by the university’s strategic Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries, it follows on from the successes of The Studio Recovery Fund, which was set up last year and supported six creative tech projects, including a digital classical musical assistant and art made with an accessible robotic drawing machine.
Firms, organisations or individuals applying to The Studio Innovation Fund, which has the themes of inclusion and environmental sustainability, must be based in Bath & North East Somerset local authority area.
The £25,000 fund utilises a UKRI Policy Support Fund grant from Research England to support new interdisciplinary programmes such as those using technology across areas such as digital, arts, culture, science, or the humanities, and to help solve pressing public policy challenges.
These link to the ambitions of the West of England Combined Authority’s cultural plan and its broader vision for the support and growth of the creative industries in the region, as well as the core policies of Bath & North East Somerset Council’s corporate strategy.
The Studio is inviting proposals for creative technology projects that can run from February to July next year which take innovative approaches to addressing one or both of the fund’s themes.
Inclusion can mean supporting new talent, engaging new audiences, enabling diversity, and empowering people to make an impact in their communities, while environmental sustainability could be providing solutions, ideas, and education, or developing sustainable products or processes.
Proposals will need to include defined outputs, which could be research-based, business-led, or about project development. For example, outputs could include a research paper, a prototype or product, collaborative or co-created community-based R&D, or profile-raising activity aimed at engaging new audiences.
Projects are invited with budgets from £1,000 to £5,000. The Studio expects to award up to five grants of between £1,000 and £2,000 and up to five between £2,000 and £5,000.
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