Supporting work at the intersection of content, creativity, the arts and technology
Matt Brown is Lead Technologist, Creative Industries at Innovate UK, one of the three founding partners of the Arts and Technology pilot programme. Here, he explains Innovate UK’s involvement, and what effects he hopes the programme will have…
The programme emerged out of the consultation and research the we undertook for Innovate UK’s most recent Creative Industries strategy.
The opportunities brought to the sector by digital technologies had developed to such an extend that it was no longer possible to continue to separate technology development from content creation and story-telling.
In the same strategy, we reiterated our interest in working with other public organisations that had a stake in the sector.
This led to a conversation with Arts Council England that produced the pilot.
The aims of the project are simple.
We want to test how we, as publicly funded organisations, can effectively support people that are working at the intersection of content, creativity, the arts and technology.
Early on we recognised that we (the funders) weren’t the right organisations to run the day-to-day of the programme, so we went out and found the experts that could.
Having three organisations — Makerversity, Near Now and Madlab — working with their own cohorts, in their own way, means that we have three strands to an experiment; three strands that we can examine and identify what worked and what didn’t.
I hope that we get the evidence that helps us to structure a future programme that supports even more people in the most appropriate way possible.
I also hope that we’ll see a few businesses emerge from the programme that are able to stand on their own feet, and maybe get to the point where they don’t need us anymore!
The innovative Arts and Technology programme was established in conjunction with three partners.
So what are the aspirations of each stakeholder? Here are the thoughts of:
Tom Campbell, the Knowledge Transfer Network’s Joint Head of Creative Industries
Lucy Sollitt, Creative Media Relationship Manager, London, Arts Council England
Frank Boyd, Director of the Creative Industries, Design and Digital Economy at the Knowledge Transfer Network
