This paper features analysis of the applications made to the Digital R&D Fund for Arts and Culture.

Key findings:

• There is a high demand from arts and cultural organisations wanting to explore how digital technologies can expand their audience reach and enable new business models. 
• Applications came from organisations representing a broad spread of arts and cultural forms and covering all six of the fund’s digital themes. 
• The disproportionate number of applications from London suggests that greater efforts will be needed to encourage strong applications from other parts of the country. 
• The levels of demand suggest that the funding partners are right to consider how the fund could be scaled-up to meet the digital R&D needs of a larger set of arts and cultural organisations.

The Digital R&D Fund for Arts and Culture aims to connect arts and cultural organisations with technology companies in a way that can benefit the wider sector. As a collaborative R&D fund, arts and cultural organisations were required to connect with technology companies when putting together their proposals.

There was an overwhelming response from the sector. The fund received 494 applications, of which 393 (seeking over £24 million in total) were judged eligible by the funding partners. This suggests that there is a high demand for digital R&D in the arts and cultural sector. This paper explores the nature of the demand by reporting some descriptive analysis of the applications.

Authors

Hasan Bakhshi and Angela Pugh