Creative Informatics opportunies in Edinburgh, Lothians, Borders & Fife

With a vibrant design and advertising sector, the largest concentration of major festivals in the world, and the highest rate of cultural employment in the UK, Edinburgh is a leading destination for creatives of all disciplines.

It's also home to some of the UK's most forward thinking creative and digital agencies, marketing teams and suppliers, many of whom are members of BIMA, the IPA and the DMA.

Creative Informatics aims to bring the city’s world-class creative industries and tech sector together, utilising innovative data-driven technologies to develop ground-breaking new products, businesses and experiences.

There are a range of ways in which our members can get involved, from early access to emerging technology, finding new collaboration opportunities, hosting creative entrepreneurs, leveraging the creative and technical expertise across the city, and gaining access to funding.

The opportunities for our member communities are varied and exciting, and could be used to kick-start in-house or side projects, pointed at client briefs and challenges.

There are six 'vehicles' covering challenge projects, proof of concept funding and partnering opportunities, coming online from April 2019 and active over the next four years.

We'd encourage you to stay informed and get involved:- check out Creative Informatics where you can sign up for email updates, attend the monthly CI Labs, where you can meet the CI team connect with creatives, academics, developers and industry peers.

Resident Entrepreneurs programme – applications now open

The Resident Entrepreneurs programme will match individuals or small teams of creative practitioners who want to develop new products or services using data or data-driven technologies, with host organisations that can provide office space, insight and support.

Hosting a Resident Entrepreneur offers a unique opportunity to bring new perspectives and ideas into your organisation. If you have an interest in a particular area of data-driven innovation, you will be matched with an individual or team of Resident Entrepreneurs with a similar focus.

Applications for the first round of Resident Entrepreneurs and Host Organisations are open now and will close on 03 June. Applications are open to individuals and organisations in Edinburgh and Southeast Scotland (Edinburgh, Midlothian, East Lothian, West Lothian, Fife, and Scottish Borders).

Residencies will usually run for between 3 and 9 months (up to a maximum of 12 months), with timescale to be agreed at the outset of the placement. Potential Resident Entrepreneurs are invited to apply for placements by responding to one of the following Creative Informatics R&D priorities:

• Developing access to and engagement with new audiences and markets.
• Developing new modalities of experience.
• Unlocking the value of archives and data sets.
• Exploring new business models for the creative industries.

For further information or to apply as a Host Organisation, contact the Creative Informatics team at creativeinformatics@ed.ac.uk or visit us here.

Respond to a Creative Informatics Challenge Project

We are asking creative and cultural organisations in Edinburgh to propose challenges affecting their business that require data-driven solutions.

If you are an SME, team or individual with the skills to respond to a challenge, we invite you to apply for funding of up to £20k to support a research and development proposal that answers a challenge project.

You will own the IP for any solution you design, with the rights to commercialise any products or services developed through the challenge process.

Open calls for challenge project applications take place twice a year in April and October. A panel will select up to five challenges per call to take forward, before opening applications for challenge respondents.

The first round of applications for challenge holders has now closed. Round 1 applications for challenge respondents open on 27^th May 2019.

For further information visit Creative Informative projects or email us at creativeinformatics@ed.ac.uk

Creative Informatics is funded by the Creative Industries Clusters Programme managed by the Arts & Humanities Research Council as part of the Industrial Strategy, and is part of the City Region Deal Data Driven Innovation initiative.