This publication is a compilation of brief case studies, capturing the main learning points of each pilot project from the Digital Research and Development Fund for Arts and Culture.

Key Findings:

• Social media was a major interest for applications while few had to do with data and archives (exception of the Dickens House Museum) and there were none about the world of games
• One interesting lesson was the need to trust the audience, even when they were participating as users of social media

• We have also learnt something about risk taking, and how its value outweighs the negative feeling around ‘failure’

The Digital Research and Development Fund for Arts and Culture was a pilot project between the Arts Council England, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Nesta, to support arts and cultural organisations across England who want to work with digital technologies to: expand their audience reach and engagement and/or explore new business models.

Each of the pilot projects were selected because they will produce research and data that other arts and cultural organisations will value highly and, possibly, develop new products/services that can be used by other organisations.

A key element of the Fund is the partnerships between arts and cultural organisations, technology providers and researchers.

We invited Dr Paul Gerhardt, of Archives for Creativity, to work with the pilot projects to compile brief case studies of each project, and to capture the main learning points.

Following on from the pilot, The Digital R&D Fund for the Arts is a 7 million Fund to support research and development projects that use digital technology to enhance audience reach and/or explore new business models for organisations with arts projects.

Author

Dr Paul Gerhard