Creative organisations and indivduals across Scotland are being invited to apply for a digital research and development (R&D) commission of up to £10,000 to develop a ‘creative digital project for online audiences’.
Ten commissions are on offer from The Space, focused upon the creation of video, audio, interactive or immersive experiences. The project should be something which can be published/delivered before the end of September 2022.
Applications are open now. The deadline for entries is 12:00 (noon) on Tuesday 18th of January 2022.
Applicants will know whether they’ve been successful by Friday 11th February 2022.
Online Audiences
Funded through the Creative Digital Initiative and hosted by Creative Scotland, this programme of digital commissioning is designed to help to grow the skills, knowledge, confidence, and enthusiasm of artists, creative practitioners and organisations in key areas of their digital activity and allow them to publish works that engage audiences online.
Thanks to the closure of cultural spaces nationwide over the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the sector has rapidly increased its use of digital technologies and distribution platforms to grow engagement with audiences online.
New Experiences
For this commissioning round, The Space is inviting artists and creative organisations to reflect
on this experience and consider what elements they wish to retain and develop for the
medium to long term.
This could be in relation to your use of digital technology, the content formats you use, the types of cultural or creative experiences you are offering your audiences or your approach to content publication and distribution.
The R&D project needs to produce content for audiences to engage with online. This
might be published on the creator’s own website or social media channels, via a third-party
platform such as YouTube Itch, Steam App Store, a podcast network or in other ways.
Part of the R&D process is to try new things and develop new approaches to engaging audiences digitally that can be built on in the future.
The commissions are designed to give creators the opportunity to experiment with new digital approaches at a cost level that can be sustained in future. In addition to funding projects at up to 90% of the budget, the organisers will provide access to their network of digital specialists. They will provide support and advice on areas where creators might have less experience, so the team can increase its skills.
Digital Content Types
Your project can involve any of the following types of digital content:
- Producing new digital creative work
- Digitally ‘capturing’ existing work by filming or recording (e.g., performances or exhibitions)
- Curating and presenting archive or collection materials online in new ways, including digital exhibition of gallery content
- Producing digital content that contextualises and explains existing work (e.g. interviews with artists or educational content)
- Testing ways of reaching underserved audiences, e.g., certain demographic groups; or specific settings such as care homes, prisons or rural communities; or speakers/users of Gaelic, Scots or BSLCreative Scotland Digital R&D Commissions 2022 – Guidance for Applicants
- Exploring emerging models of distribution, such as digital ‘touring’ to festival audiences of work that is not yet generally available to the public
- As well as linear video and audio works, we are interested in projects that use interactive, immersive and other technologies that can be experienced online
This commissioning programme will not support digital marketing materials/campaigns or the creation of digital installations that need to be experienced in person. The programme also cannot support projects where the digital elements are already being funded by Creative Scotland (though it can fund projects that build on already funded projects with additional digital activities).
Equality, diversity and inclusion
The organisers are committed to selecting a range of commissions that reflect the diversity of Scotland. They particularly welcome applications from diverse-led or disability-led organisations or diverse or disabled artists. We also welcome applications in and relating to Scotland’s minority languages (i.e., Gaelic or Scots) or from users and speakers of BSL.
Finally, The Space is also interested in projects where activities are focussed on meeting the needs of underserved audiences and areas demonstrating deprivation, such as the seven domains measured by Scotland’s Index of Multiple Deprivation: income, employment, education, health, access to services, crime and housing, poverty, crime, rural isolation, low economic activity/unemployment and poor educational attainment.
