Creative Industries Clusters Programme

Lead Research Organisation: University of the West of England
Department Name: Fac of Arts Creative Ind and Education

Abstract

The Bristol + Bath Creative Industries Cluster [(B+B)XR+D] is a new partnership designed to improve the performance of the Creative Industries in the Bristol & Bath region. The partners are UWE, Bristol, Watershed, and the Universities of Bath, Bristol and Bath Spa, working with a range of industry partners from Television, Theatre, and Computing. The Bristol + Bath Creative Industries Cluster will support its business partners in finding new ways to engage the audiences of the future in new market places. Our R&D-led productions will lead the cluster into the future, engaging with emergent technologies, boosting inward investment and developing a new talent base to lead the cluster's creative industries in the next ten years. Our core proposition is partnering with industry in understanding user engagement in new platforms. Next generation content delivery methods must preserve the immersive properties of content as perceived by humans when transmitted over bandlimited networks. We will mobilise the cluster research base to support businesses in improving their performance through projects that exploit the new relationships between content type, acquisition format, format parameters, coding artefacts, user environment and engagement.The (B+B)XR+D programme is designed to offer many points of contact and collaboration for industry partners that will produce several different kinds of impact for a range of different service users, participants, companies and individuals. Our goal is to lay the foundations for the Bristol + Bath cluster to be internationally successful by 2030.

Planned Impact

The project will engage 200 businesses through the breadth of its activities in meaningful capacity building in creative technology innovation and build 120 different kinds of R&D Collaboration across our range of projects. These collaborations will be driven by the 40 secondments that constitute our Fellowship programme giving industry creatives and university researchers the opportunity to work together to produce innovative ideas. We expect to support the development of 10 new businesses and create or safeguard 80 jobs. Our commitment to inclusive talent development for the Creative Industries in our New Talent internship scheme aims to ensure that the regional industries future growth is driven by a new cohort of creative technology innovators with an understanding of what the audiences of the future want and how to deliver it to them. We will also aim to produce at least five projects based on new business models that look to exploit content or IP in new ways as well as leveraging our existing international contacts to produce five new international R&D or trading networks for the new products and services that our partnership projects will produce. We will also create impact through our programme of capturing learning and engaging publics though the production of 8 Working papers, 30 academic papers, 250 Blog posts, 100 presentations, and direct engagement with 20,000 people through our events and showcases across the course of the programme. Finally we aim to generate income, investment and further R&D funding of £7m for the new products, processes and services that we produce.
 
Title Bonnie Binary 
Description An experimental immersive sensory experience, Bonnie Binary believes in the healing power of immersive musical experience. We aim to bring the calming sounds and joyful experience of making music together to a wider audience for entertainment, positive mood, and relaxation. Their ambitious idea is to combine Smart Textiles, human interaction design, and calming musical soundscapes to open up access to beneficial immersive sensory experiences. This funding is to support the R&D development of the interactive product - the Music-cush. Embedded technology turns the cushion into a musical instrument. The touch of the soft buttons (textile sensors) on the cushion trigger pre-recorded sounds and movement of the cushion triggers sound effects to add a playful interaction. Their vision is to break down the barriers to making and enjoying a shared performance and open up opportunities to experience the physicality of music. We are putting musicians, non-musicians and people with disabilities at the heart of the musical experience. Enabling another level of togetherness and participation. The products have an international market with the potential to create revenue for the UK. A successful launch of the Music-cush will enable Bonnie Binary to build our expertise and offer employment opportunities. Bonnie Binary are crafting textiles, electronics and music, creating a unique, immersive, high-quality multi-sensory/healing experience. Innovations include: - delivery of music through accessible Smart textile interface - software design for intuitive user-experience - modular tech platform can be updated with minimal technical support - seamless integration of electronics within textiles - designed for ease-of-use and portability, simple and safe for different abilities 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Project in progress 
URL https://www.bonniebinary.co.uk/
 
Title Bristol Arts Channel 
Description B+B Creative R+D supported Bristol Arts Channel (BAC), a collaborative response to the pandemic from a group of the city's cultural organisations who had to close due to the first lockdown. BAC hosted live entertainment in lieu of access to physical venues. They generated a collaborative, curated programme to host and produce live events for the city on a bespoke microsite. They worked to ensure audiences were guided between different venues' online spaces to build longer term audiences across them and build a sense of community within the city at a time when people could feel isolated. 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2020 
Impact Between 1 June - 6 July, BAC worked with over 60 organisations, independent artists and festivals based in Bristol to showcase a programme of over 140 online offerings. Two businesses from our Expanded Performance Pathfinder were partners in this collaboration (MAYK and ParaOrchestra), alongside Watershed, who used BAC to experiment with online content that specifically spoke to local audiences. In response to B+B Creative R+D core inclusion strategy, BAC provided more accessible content, using captioning and BSL interpretation, and supported work from under-represented communities. B+B Creative R+D researcher, Dr Ana Levordashka, based at the University of Bath, supported evaluation. She conducted a focus study that illuminated how individuals engaging with the Channel attended more events, experienced a greater sense of place and connection and were inspired with a desire to revisit performances and venues in person, strengthening relationships between online content and physical venues. BAC gained half a million interactions across the programme with almost half from the South West, which speaks to the success and future possibilities of a curated online programme of events for city regions to build support, sustainability and community around arts venues. 
URL https://www.bristolartschannel.com
 
Title Bristol PopMap 
Description A digital prototype called Bristol PopMap, in partnership with Calvium and Bristol City Council. PopMap connects people with the events and activities that occur in the city's streets, spaces and venues, responding to your location and preferences, to reveal activity relevant to you in a time sensitive way. PopMap is about making what is so often invisible, visible. It is about revealing the quirky, hidden and surprising using the updated Bristol Legible City digital mapping resources and giving the city a unique local platform from which it can share and encourage all forms of cultural activity. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2020 
Impact Follow on funding from Innovate UK to pivot tech to different content through a new prototype called CoMap featuring services and information relevant to Bristol citizens during the Pandemic.Despiteimpacttotheirbusinessasawhole,thisaspectoftheirwork has gained support through a £25k COVID-19 response grant from Innovate UK. This new trajectory has opened up business opportunities for the future, with Director Mike Rawlinson identifying 10 areas that they are now looking at, huge interest with their existing client base, and new regional conversations taking place due to involvement in our scheme. They have tested the platform with over100 people and had an overwhelmingly positive response. They have made contact with 60 local businesses and demoed to 20. They have been successful on Innovate UK's Creative Scale Up programme, which will take them through an accelerated programme of specialist IP, spin-out, growth and new market development. Their prototype funding has also given City ID time and support for learning and skills development related to community engagement, tech/programming and project management. This allowed them to upskill and sustain their existing long-term staff who are already committed and share the company vision, rather than bringing in external expertise, contributing to in-house and regional resilience. 
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/article/popmap-transitioning-to-a-new-normal
 
Title Celestial 
Description Celestial see themselves as the natural successor to fireworks, as they use drones for lightshows, using each drone as a pixel to illuminate the night sky. Celestial see themselves as the natural successor to fireworks, as they use drones for lightshows, using each drone as a pixel to illuminate the night sky. Currently, the shows are all pre-programmed before the performance, but funds from the Trailblazer scheme have gone towards research and development to prototype a printed circuit board (PCB) which will allow them to have direct remote control of their fleet of 300 drones, opening up the creative potential of their technology. 
Type Of Art Artistic/Creative Exhibition 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Project in progress 
URL https://twitter.com/CelestialDrones/status/1453652771601846273
 
Title Circle/????? 
Description Circle/????? is a collaborative project between Roxana Vilk/Vilk Collective and Squidsoup exploring themes of inclusion, immersive experiences and shared spaces. This prototype will expand the spatialised light and sound technology AudioWAVE into a performative tool to unlock experiences for audiences in the co-creation and composition of new work. Circle/????? is a collaborative project between Roxana Vilk/Vilk Collective and Squidsoup exploring themes of inclusion, immersive experiences and shared spaces. This prototype will expand the distinct AudioWAVE technology, a system of networked light and sound devices into a unique spatialised tool for live performance. Focusing on distributed rhythmic composition, live voice spatialisation and the development of a new intuitive interface the collaboration will develop and test a new approach to performance. This project considers themes around liveness, togetherness, trust and empathy through an iterative, playful approach with an aim to unlock new experiences for audiences in the co-creation and composition of new and exciting work. 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2021 
Impact This collaboration has won follow on funding, they have performed at multiple venues across Bristol and Bath, they are continuing to develop the technology to increase audience co-production during performances. 
URL http://roxanavilk.com/circle
 
Title Compound 
Description Alex Witty Compound takes motorsport industry waste and converts it into recycled, fashionable footwear. Using discarded Formula 1 tyres and shredding them to create a unique rubber filament to 3D print shoe soles. Saving F1 tyres from the incinerator and making some fire kicks in the process. Compound shoe uppers are created from motorsport clothing offcuts that are shredded and then converted into brand new recycled yarn which is then fed into a 3D knitting machine, creating unique knitted uppers with little to no wastage! Compound Footwear will be designed specifically with disassembly in mind, by using as few components as possible, resulting in sneakers that can be easily and endlessly recycled. Our aim is to create a recycled footwear business that benefits motorsport teams, race fans and the planet. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Project in progress 
 
Title Dark Land Light House VR 
Description Tanuja Amarasuriya & Timothy X Atack (Sleepdogs) There's a lighthouse orbiting a Dark Land, in the depths of space. A lone Keeper is tasked with ensuring the beam stays lit, watching out for the many souls on passing interstellar ships; warning them from the edges of the Dark Land. This is the story of Teller Ghent, the last Keeper on Lighthouse 5, and what happened when the Dark Land started changing, when the ghosts began emerging, and when the light finally went out. Dark Land Light House is a VR adaptation of Sleepdogs 2016 sci-fi theatre show. Drawing on Sleepdogs' experiential, sound-led, cinematic approach to theatre making, they wanted to create a VR experience that combines the compulsion and scale of genre storytelling with the tenderness and intensity of an intimate one-to-one theatre encounter. Sleepdogs Trailblazer award is allowing them to work with specialists to develop the concept, strategy and pitch for the next stages of fundraising and development. 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Tanuja Amarasuriya & Timothy X Atack (Sleepdogs) There's a lighthouse orbiting a Dark Land, in the depths of space. A lone Keeper is tasked with ensuring the beam stays lit, watching out for the many souls on passing interstellar ships; warning them from the edges of the Dark Land. This is the story of Teller Ghent, the last Keeper on Lighthouse 5, and what happened when the Dark Land started changing, when the ghosts began emerging, and when the light finally went out. Dark Land Light House is a VR adaptation of Sleepdogs 2016 sci-fi theatre show. Drawing on Sleepdogs' experiential, sound-led, cinematic approach to theatre making, they wanted to create a VR experience that combines the compulsion and scale of genre storytelling with the tenderness and intensity of an intimate one-to-one theatre encounter. Sleepdogs Trailblazer award is allowing them to work with specialists to develop the concept, strategy and pitch for the next stages of fundraising and development. 
URL http://sleepdogs.org/
 
Title Dhaqan Collective 
Description Ayan, Asmaa and Fozia The dhaqan collective is a feminist art collective of Somali women, centering the voices of womxn and elders in our community, and privileging co-creation and collaboration. This project will focus on finding new ways to combine sound with physical 'woven' artefacts to create audible tapestries. Creative ecology is rooted in the collective thinking of Somali nomadic life and creativity is at its heart. In the last few decades, Somali nomadic life has become endangered due to environmental collapse which is fueled by an extractive capitalism that benefits the global north. Dhaqan Collective want to learn sustainable weaving methods in order to maintain the endangered traditions of Somali nomadic life. Additionally, sourcing sustainable materials that are available locally which will be used during the tapestry making process. They are aware of the high levels of carbon emissions associated with the textile industry and would like to approach this project with the mindset of preemptively reducing or eliminating a carbon footprint. This project will be tying together the Collective's ongoing work in storytelling, soundscapes and combining it with Somali weaving practices. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Project in progress 
URL https://www.dhaqan.org/
 
Title Echoborg Goes Ethical 
Description 'I am Echoborg' is a live show created afresh each time by an audience in conversation with an artificial intelligence. Writer, Rik Lander and conversational AI developer, Phil D Hall has been evolving it since 2016. It provokes audiences to think about an individual and collective relationship with these technologies. Trailblazer funding will help transition the show into one that explicitly explores the unforeseen consequences of allowing AI's to make decisions on our behalf. There's ambition to shape this to become a tool for planners, designers and implementers of AI systems to explore potential ethical problems. The team are particularly interested in reflecting the unheard voices of groups and individuals who are affected by AI but under-represented in their design. The team will modify the event and the existing software and will run some shows for these two groups; the makers and those affected by AI systems. This experimental approach will inform a larger funding bid. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Project in progress 
URL https://echoborg.com/
 
Title Everything Is Music 
Description Everything Is Music is a collaborative project between Crack Magazine and Landmrk. Everything is Music is a network of location based experiences built around newly commissioned pieces, unheard archival works and classic material forming an immersive journey through the musical history of Bristol and Bath. Audiences will travel to specific locations where they unlock media linked to that place. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2020 
Impact When Everything is Music is unveiled, audiences will have a new relationship and understanding of places they formerly thought of as familiar. Somewhat ironically, this had always been an objective of our project - creating an experience which reframes your understanding of places you thought you knew. We'll now be unveiling our project in a world where going outside, in and of itself, is novel. Everything is Music will hopefully enhance that renewed sense of connection. The team are creating a music experience that doesn't necessarily rely on indoor, mass gatherings, connecting people with meaningful sounds and stories in open spaces with individualised routes that won't lead to big meetings. This objective has a new significance in a socially and physically distant world. 
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/article/maintaining-musical-connections-in-a-socially-distant-world
 
Title Focus - but Where? 
Description Focus - but where? is a crowd-sourced game using play to explore the intersection of climate change activism and our complex media environment. Through co-production workshops, Focus-but where? has experimented with gameplay to help participants step outside of their echo-chambers, examine the role of emerging technologies in climate activism and study technologies that can foster a more constructive framework for political engagement. Using animation, eye-tracking software and illustration, with a playful, DIY aesthetic, Focus - but where? is a game which helps users navigate their own biases. It enables players to understand their priorities and focus when engaging with climate media. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2024 
Impact The creation of a completed script for the game, 35% of the illustrations, and a basic open-sourced game development framework all available at Github. 
URL https://kexinliu.net/focus-but-where/
 
Title Follower.TV 
Description Network N will build Follower.TV - a better way for creators to reach their fans, find new audiences, and monetise their content. Think about all the places a creator distributes their content - across Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and the web. Sharing content and building loyalties across these platforms is hard. A Follower.TV channel is a place that pulls together all the content produced by a creator from multiple platforms into a single, chronological flow. Users will be able to sign into Follower.TV and get their own personalised experience, pulling in channels from their favourite creators - they will not need to miss a thing and no longer depend on algorithms. Founded in 2012, Network N operates three divisions. The Publisher Collective is an advertising network that looks after 150+ websites and serves around 5 billion ads per month, delivering technology, programmatic, direct sales and growth support. Project N is the in-house creative agency, delivering solutions for clients including Amazon, Red Bull, Epic, Riot and Electronic Arts. The owned and operated portfolio includes brands like PCGamesN, PocketTactics, The Loadout, WarGamer and The Digital Fix. The company is based in Bath, in the UK, but operates with clients, partners and audiences all over the world. The group employs just over 120 full-time staff and continues to expand. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Project in progress 
URL https://www.network-n.com/
 
Title Future Places Toolkit 
Description Participatory architecture service - digital tool and creative practice. The toolkit is being designed in collaboration with creative technologists Michele Panegrossi and Luca Biada (Fenyce), along with Jessica Hoffmann of Uninvited Guests and sound artist Duncan Speakman. The team have partnered with architects Stride Treglown and Knowle West Media Centre, with additional support from University of Bristol's Knowledge Exchange Fund. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2020 
Impact Collaboration with architectural company Stride Treglown. It has impacted their business practice. They are developing promotional materials to explain Future Places Toolkit to other architecture and design studios, consultants, and developers. 
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/article/digital-tools-for-imagining-future-places
 
Title Garden Lab Whispers Grow 
Description Garden Lab Whispers Grow co-created a garden lab to grow more caring relations and inclusive processes for climate action. Working with creative technologists and a disabled interdisciplinary designer, the project ties together disability wisdom, natures wisdom and DIY accessible tech to create an inclusive garden lab. Participants of the lab invented experiments and tools for exploring our connection to non-living human beings. Working with active allotment steering groups, led by the local community, Garden Lab aimed to enhance the ecology and accessibility of a green space and create models of inclusive collaborative knowledge- sharing, learning and making that can be adapted to any community green space with a climate action agenda. 
Type Of Art Artistic/Creative Exhibition 
Year Produced 2024 
Impact Garden Lab Whispers Grow ran a showcase at Knowle West Media Centre, Bristol, attended by 38 adults and 10 children. They also ran a workshop event at an allotment in Knowle West for 25 adults and 10 children. Their work was also shared as part of Futures Festival 2023 and at a European Network of Living Labs event. 
URL https://kwmc.org.uk/projects/garden-lab-whispers-grow/
 
Title Ghost Orchid 
Description Originally a stage play that was recently performed as part of SparkFest in Bath, some of the themes within Ghost Orchid were used as the basis for creating fun, imaginative and empowering creative tech workshops for teenage girls living in North Somerset who do not have easy access to digital technologies. They will be supported to use different creative technology like soft robotics, simple coding and animation to build their own mini narratives. 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Three creative technology workshops held at Pill Youth Club. 
URL http://www.agapanthusproductions.org.uk/ghost-orchid-project.html
 
Title Greenbelt 2.0 
Description Greenbelt 2.0 is focused on Bristol's greenbelt. Informed by experiences of loss and conflict, grassroots power and imaginative forays and visions of possibility, it asks what purposes the greenbelt should serve in this time of climate emergency. How would the landscape function if it served these purposes? Through working up these ideas together, Greenbelt 2.0 are holding gatherings on the land, walks, thought and embodiment experiments, and sharing stories and perspectives, co-creating of maps that bring to life these tensions, losses, landscapes, boundaries and their interrelatedness, and creating sensitively designed, captivating animations that transform. This project explores how creative technologies could facilitate a vision and policy from which a million climate actions could proliferate and have far-reaching, healing impact. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact The creation of a documentary film and animation aiming to start a conversation about the future of the greenbelt around Bristol. The hosting of a workshop bringing together diverse stakeholders to discuss what Bristol's greenbelt is and could be. 
URL https://www.reubenandjamie.com/greenbelt
 
Title Inclued AI 
Description Inclued AI is a companion software that helps content creators identify bias as it happens. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact New IP: inclusive word alternative dictionary 
URL https://www.inclued.ai/about
 
Title Lost Horizon 
Description Lost Horizon will deliver a scalable content delivery platform for publishing and distributing live and on-demand music, performance and visual art. We will develop a 3D immersive social VR and gaming environment as a digital twin of our IRL venue to prototype a new digital economic model for the music, entertainment and live sector.? Lost Horizon will deliver a scalable content delivery platform for publishing and distributing live and on-demand music, performance and visual art. We will develop a 3D immersive social VR and gaming environment as a digital twin of our IRL venue to prototype a new digital economic model for the music, entertainment and live sector. The prototype will be a rich, intuitive and detailed 3D free-roaming, open-world game environment offering social and real-time access to a global network of real-world venues and festivals. Lost Horizon was founded in 2020, by the team that produces Shangri-La at Glastonbury Festival and the rolling visual and digital art collection, ShangrilART. The team is renowned for bringing emerging culture to wider audiences, pushing boundaries and pioneering new ideas, so when Glastonbury 2020 was cancelled, Lost Horizon was created, a sprawling metaverse of six virtual venues, to produce an interactive festival that attracted an audience of 4.36 million globally. In 2021 Lost Horizon HQ opened in Bristol, an IRL creative digital hub, incorporating a gallery, bar, and live music venue, and will soon launch an exact digital twin capable of replicating performances into VR and free-roaming gaming environments in real-time. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Project in progress. 
URL https://www.losthorizonlive.com/
 
Title Rabbit Holes 
Description Penny Hay, Ian Forrester & James Cook Rabbit Holes Collective involves a group of artists and creative professionals exploring adaptive podcasting to create unique content and invite (especially young) people to metaphorically 'fall down a rabbit hole' to connect more deeply with nature. Individuals discover how they can use adaptive technologies to create podcasts unique to the listener and their context. BBC R+D is supporting the Collective in new ways of sharing ideas via digital and emerging technologies, creating peer-to-peer connections and networks of learning and support. Working alongside artists and tech wizards, the Collective aims to constructively disrupt and reimagine possibilities for digital collaboration by developing ideas in different immersive and sensorial technology. Inviting their audiences to have a fulfilling and enriching experience, one that allows a personal journey based on imagination and transformation. Rabbit Holes Collective is a community of practice that prioritises openness of delivery, creative consumption and co-creation. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact https://bristolbathcreative.org/article/rabbit-holes-collective-dr-penny-hay-and-the-team-offer-reflections-on-progress 
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t0fhtneLAE
 
Title Stormjar 
Description With the use of environmentally sustainable NFTs Stormjar are creating a new, horror social content creation experience called the Nightmare Auction, where monsters trade the nightmares of humankind. The project will build a community around nightmares that then become different forms of content - a game demo, a short film and a digital experience. With the use of environmentally sustainable NFTs Stormjar is creating a new, horror social content creation experience called the Nightmare Auction, where monsters trade the nightmares of humankind. The project will build a community around nightmares that then become different forms of content - a game demo, a short film and a digital experience. Stormjar Ltd is a new company exploring hybrid horror experiences for live and digital audiences. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Project in progress 
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/article/what-an-nftease
 
Title Storyhaven 
Description Gareth Osborne Deep into Earth's next ice age, stories have become the fuel for lifeStoryhaven is a table-top reading and roleplay game for families to play together over three weeks at home, in which children co-create the narrative with their parents and live-streamed immersive theatre sessions with an actor bring their storytelling to life. It reimagines childhood reading experiences as playful and exploratory social fictions that can exist in parallel to our daily lives, creating imaginary sites of intergenerational exchange and exploration. Storyhaven will be piloted in the Bristol and Bath area in 2022 as a new community business model that brings bookshops, public libraries, and theatres into closer collaboration. Project lead: Gareth Osborne is an immersive experience producer and researcher. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Project in progress 
URL https://garethosbornewriter.wordpress.com/for-bookshops/
 
Title Stupid Cities 
Description Stupid Cities is a Digital Placemaking prototype which aims to improve the social equality of our cities by using placemaking tools to highlight how their current design creates disability and environments full of micro-aggressions which stop people engaging in society. We will be creating tools initially for wheelchair users to record their experiences journeying through public spaces. Using this placemaking data to find new ways of seeing our public space with respect to access. Creating physical sculptures, street art and advocacy events that give visibility in public spaces of the invisible obstacles in our cities. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2020 
Impact Little Lost Robot Studio is a newly created company as a result of prototype funding that is having an impact on the creative community in Bristol and Bath, offering small grants and other support to freelancers. Audience reach has been limited and postponed due to Covid 19. 
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/article/art-technology-and-engagement-in-a-time-of-isolation
 
Title The Apothecary Network 
Description The Apothecary Network is focused on using technology to tackle nature deprivation inequality through herbalism. The project centres ancestral knowledge and community joy using app technology. It connects to a network of decolonial community apothecaries which centre growing, community, collective care, joy, and connection with nature in radical, anti-racist ways. The project's prototype app is based upon plants and knowledge from the afrofuturist apothecary and will initially centre eight plant allies that have been selected for their ease of growth, medicinal properties and historical link to the struggles within diaspora communities. Their long term aim is to create a community around this ancestral knowledge and build a relationship of reciprocity with the land and each other. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact The development of a prototype app that aids users in identifying herbs they can grow in the space they have available, based on ancestral knowledge. 
URL https://www.theupsetters.co.uk/the-apothecary-network
 
Title The Lantern Room 
Description The Lantern Room R&D is a proof of concept/prototyping project investigating a synchronised cross-Atlantic immersive theatre experience fusing digital technology/mixed reality with live performance. It heralds a new creative collaboration between Raucous and Toronto based immersive company Lost & Gone. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Public engagement: presentations/showcasing of work for 355 people at Hopeful Futures event and for 80 people at Watershed; discoveries from the project published on the Raucous website £42,000 in follow-on funding from Arts Council England 
URL https://raucous.org.uk/the-lantern-room
 
Title Unlock Bath 
Description Unlock Bath is a 'games for a purpose' heritage project that invites multiple museums across the region to co-design a digital escape room experience. Led by Echo Games CIC, Unlock Bath traces the economic and socio-cultural development of the city through the lens of Bath Stone. Through a series of puzzles, players explore the geological formation of the stone in the Jurassic period, the life of miners, the evolution of regional industrial transport, and the buildings that the stone helped bring to life. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact New collaboration between 5 museums in Bath to co-design the project with Echo Games. 
URL https://echogames.co.uk/unlock-bath/#about
 
Title Unpleasantville 
Description A mixed format, geo-located 'alternative' audio walking tour of Bath, using a mixture of local music and spoken word content, with an emphasis on promoting the work of emerging acts. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Public engagement: geolocated audio tour in Bath, September 2022, for 166 people 
URL https://www.unpleasantville.com/
 
Title Visual Conversations 
Description Bristol+Bath Creative R+D Artist in Residence, Abigail Hunt, created a series of abstract collages exhibited as a series of posters to mark the end of Bristol+Bath Creative R+D. Each artwork was created using imagery gifted by individuals that Abigail met and worked with during her artist residency. The multiple elements, projects, strands, people, happenings, thinking and learning of the project are too great to comprehend individually: instead, the collages work with the idea of 'visual conversations', comprised of the multiple pieces, people and places that have fed into Bristol+Bath Creative R+D as a project and a partnership. 
Type Of Art Artwork 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact 50 people attended the final public sharing event for Visual Conversations. The project created paid roles for 4 recent graduates from Bath Spa University and UWE (3 of whom were aged between 16 and 30). Two of these alumni, who met through Abigail Hunt's residency, have now set up a separate project together and are working together longer-term. 
URL https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/visual-conversations-tickets-726741091167?utm_source=eventbrite&utm_m...
 
Title WALK THIS WAY 
Description A light and music installation by COLOUR MY REALITY (New Scholar fundee Rob Eagle) as part of light festival BD is LIT 2023. Created with young people in Shipley, UK. 
Type Of Art Artistic/Creative Exhibition 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact 60 young people in Bradford were involved in co-producing the installation. 500 estimated visitors to the installation. 
URL https://www.instagram.com/walk_this_way_shipley/
 
Title Where Do We Go When We _? 
Description Where do we go when we__? is an exploration into harnessing creative technology to develop a multi-sensory, nature-inspired experience. It aims to address barriers with accessing local green spaces and fostering a value for the natural world through interactive decolonised play and immersive art. Embodying 'access as a creative tool', the team have worked closely with local residents and communities to delve deeper into sensory research; specifically, hoping to better understand what multi-sensory elements will be best suited to create a space that's intersectional and caters to neurodiverse people and those on the spectrum. 
Type Of Art Artistic/Creative Exhibition 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact The production of a prototype multisensory exhibition experience, which was showcased in St. Paul's, Bristol, to an audience of 100 people, and to an audience of 111 people at Watershed, Bristol. 
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu9V-wrNazQ
 
Title While We Are Apart 
Description While We Are Apart will build collaborative and playful tools for the creation and use of hyperlocal geographical maps whilst exploring how such tools might sit within current placemaking practices. Building a new kind of collaborative and social mapping platform, whilst the associated research funding will be used to look at how such a platform can be used to map human and non-human community assets, shared spaces, and power in land systems. Somewhere on the spectrum of civic participation, engagement and community consultation processes is a business model that centres a community creating value for itself, whilst enabling productive and non-extractive conversations with those who seek to change or develop it. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Project in Progress 
URL https://freeicecream.co.uk/consultancy-labs-and-workshops/
 
Title Who is She 
Description This project takes a deep dive into imagined stories, and future possibilities of how Black women exist, and are presented in Bristol. The city becomes our canvas, and its history becomes a springboard. We hope to inspire conversations about how public art can be a place for justice for those erased. Who is She is a project created by Nancy Medina and Chinonyerem Odimba. Using outdoor projection mapping and innovative technological tools, Who is She project takes a deep dive into present imagined stories, and future possibilities of how Black women exist, and are presented in Bristol. The city becomes our canvas, and its history becomes a springboard. We want to have conversations about how public art can be a place for justice for those erased, and a place to assert ownership. Partnering with creatives and communities, we hope to create work that's an exploration of our relationship to natural spaces, spaces charged with colonial history; and what it is to express ourselves through technology as Black artists. It is part of A National Conversation, a UK wide project produced by English Touring Theatre (ETT). 
Type Of Art Artistic/Creative Exhibition 
Year Produced 2021 
Impact Unknown 
 
Title With You 
Description Hundreds of thousands of Covid-19 sufferers have been admitted to hospital, often with no access to phones or personal devices. WithYou is a free digital service being created to support isolated patients by bringing together voice messages, image, song and music from their friends and family on one playable audio track. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2021 
Impact The company responsible for development - Trigger - have received follow on funding and have built partnerships with a broad range of UK hospital trusts to scale up their customer base. 
URL https://www.withyou.org.uk/
 
Title breathing.systems 
Description breathing.systems is led by Nik Rawlings. This project will create a flexible, wireless multichannel sound system to be worn by performers, through which their vocal performances can be processed and amplified to explore ideas of remote networked presence, polymorphous bodies and vocal transformation. breathing.systems expands on Nik's previous practice as a vocalist - they have long been interested in the voice as a way of expressing a mediated relationship with alternate bodies in sound. Their work has often focussed on ideas of remote networked presence, polymorphous bodies and vocal transformation, using granular and spectral techniques to process their voice. breathing.systems expands on previous work that attempted to create fluid and relational bodies of sound that were formed by using performers to spatialise Nik's voice using worn speakers - and creates a system for doing this live, which has not been possible before. At a time when Covid has made live group singing impossible, they're interested in the possibility of creating a chorus of their own voice by temporarily inhabiting the presence of our performers. By working with a multi-speaker array, and ten performers, they therefore aim to create performances that use their processed and distributed voice to explore network modelling, clouds of voices and distributed presence. 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2021 
Impact Nik has won additional funding and its exploring ways to commercialise the technology. 
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/article/watch-breathing-systems
 
Title nARratives 
Description The prototype offers a dynamic and purposeful alternative to current AR tours, creating a product that will demonstrate its ability to enhance art, culture and heritage, celebrating the impact of place on creative practices and, in turn, the impact of creative practices on place. The product will be co-constructed to exhibit culture specific to the Seven Saints of St Pauls Mural Project but the technology has the intelligence to exhibit any content, in any space or location. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2020 
Impact A prototype that will digitally augment local art and cultural narratives to allow people to collectively experience place. Reaching audiences has been limited and postponed due to Covid 19. 
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/article/whose-new-normal
 
Description This programme allowed us to discover a number of best-practice ways to support development in the creative sector. Understanding Bristol and Bath as a productive creative ecosystem, rather than as a cluster identified only by some of its outputs, has made it clear that profitability is rarely the sole motivating factor for engaging in a creative practice, nor the sole ingredient for its success. Nor is money the sole currency: creative ecosystems thrive on the exchange of skills, access to collaborators, and inspiration.

Instead, a creative ecosystem has unique values, challenges, strengths, and opportunities. Using this framing allowed us to focus on people and process, and not just the economic worth of the region's outputs. We think of this like supporting the mycelia of connections beneath the ground that share resources and information, visible only on the surface of the earth as mushrooms. If you only count the mushrooms, you miss all the things necessary to make them emerge.

With this approach, we were able to seek solutions to the entrenched challenges produced by money-first innovation policies. Rather than being prescriptive, we built frameworks around existing activity in the region to foster more equitable forms of collaboration and networking, to enable more diverse communities to participate in making and engaging with creative work.

This work challenged us to think more intentionally about keeping the creative sector accessible, inclusive, ethical, and sustainable. It's important to note that even well-intentioned projects like ours are not immune to issues arising out of mismanaged power structures, or poor representation. Creative ecosystems have their own pre-existing power imbalances, and therefore require careful support, self-reflection, and a commitment to staying as open as they can be.

We found out the following, and have made recommendations on this basis.

Complexity, Simplicity and Accessibility
Creative ecosystems are complex, but the work of supporting clusters should be simple.
The complexity of the programme (its different themes, activity, funding opportunities and remits across cities) made it difficult for people to understand, both internally (team, university administration) and externally (funding recipients, local stakeholders).
This affected our ability to reach new communities. For those who did take part in the programme, they found it hard to engage with the range of work happening across the programme, as our ecosystem felt so vast and hard to grasp.
We tend to use language that makes most sense to academics or industry professionals. But how legible is this language across different groups? For example, universities define 'research' in very different ways to most companies. Many SMEs, start-ups and new entrants to the creative industries are intimidated even by the idea of research.
We realised we had a responsibility to be clear about the different ways our words might be interpreted. We needed a clean break between funding language and the moment of public engagement.
Similarly, we tended to use spaces that academics or industry professionals are comfortable working in. But such spaces can feel intimidating or exclusive to those who are new to them.
Targeted outreach is needed to bridge the gap between what we can offer and communities that would never otherwise access these offers.
Key takeaways:
Have a clear brand with a very clear set of offers.
Use the languages and spaces of the communities you aren't reaching.
Localised, targeted outreach is needed to widen accessibility.

Building Regional Capacity
To support a creative ecosystem on a regional scale, the form your R&D takes needs to reflect the reality of how the creative industries operate within your region.
Our programme aimed to provide an environment for responsible innovation in creative technology across the Bath and Bristol area. Yet this region is not uniform. While Bristol has a long-established network of individuals, businesses and organisations working at the intersection of creativity and technology, Bath's creative sector - with the exception of a few large companies - is much younger.
Identifying such regional features is a crucial step in designing a successful creative programme. We could have planned dedicated time for the Bristol-Bath relationship to be researched in greater detail, especially early on in the programme, to consider the implications of this relationship for the structure and design of our R&D activities.
To support R&D across this regional diversity, our programme sought to build relations between Bath and Bristol: its universities, companies and creatives. While this process was not without problems, new relations have been cultivated and knowledge has been shared between these groups in several different contexts. For example, in Bath, the development of The Studio at Palace Yard Mews - a coworking space and hub for those working in creative technology - grew directly through learnings from the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol.
In recognition of the diversity within our regional creative sector, our programme offered different levels of funding tailored to different stages of professional development. Our smaller funding pots for testing, developing and reflecting on creative ideas or inclusive practices were widely praised by programme participants, particularly among those in Bath who were new to the sector.
There is still a huge gulf in what people can achieve downstream from R&D investment, including becoming attractive to further investment. Sustaining enterprises after prototyping is a huge absence in the clustering process and is where most potential is lost to the creative industries, including boosting a regions' productivity tail.
Bristol+Bath Creative R+D ultimately aimed at crowding interesting stuff together. We need to support processes for building regional capacity by accommodating as much of the diversity of our regional creative sectors as possible.
Key takeaways:
Set aside time and resource at the beginning of your programme to study the creative sector profile of the region. Use the findings to inform how you design, tailor and structure R&D activities.
Innovation expertise is unequally available across geographical clusters. Design and fund processes of knowledge exchange in order to raise as many boats as possible.
Tailor funding opportunities to different stages of professional development, to have impact across the diversity of your regional creative sector.


There is a pressing need for business development support and investment to fill the gap between prototype and market. Funding communities supporting emerging creative enterprises over extended periods of time will help to retain expertise and produce ongoing social and technological innovation.
Bring diverse people together to support innovation clusters.

Inclusion and Diversity
If you want to be inclusive, you have to begin by creating an inclusive culture in the heart of the organisation, being welcoming and accessible, explicitly talking about inclusion, and making different people's needs explicit. People need to feel that they can talk about what they need in order to be able to do their job and be heard in a way that's non-judgmental and non-critical.
If you want to be inclusive, you probably need to create different pathways or entry points into your cluster project, for different levels of experience. You should be bringing people in who have not had that much experience in that space or sector before and therefore may not be ready for a £50,000 or £100,000 grant. It may be more appropriate to create different ladders of opportunity that offer people a developmental trail through the programme. Our Trailblazer Fund was an attempt to do this, which introduced small-scale or flexible pots of funding.
If you want to be inclusive, but you feel very unconfident about how to do that, you should involve inclusion partners who have experience of working with different kinds of communities. Be clear about what the arrangements are, what the exchange is, what they might be giving as well as what they might be getting in their relationship with your programme. Pay them fairly for their time and input.
If you want to be inclusive, you should think about what kind of inclusion you want to practise. Is this for everybody? Is this for particular communities? What form of intersectionality does your inclusion practice follow? Because trying to do everything for everybody is not always the best recipe.
If you want to be inclusive, you should consider inclusive governance from the very beginning, think about where your knowledge is going to land in the world and where your R&D is going to lead in the world. Then you can make sure that you include the downstream beneficiaries of your R&D in your governance structure. You should try to make sure that your governance structure and your leadership structure reflect the wider community. However, this can be challenging in universities when professors are most likely to be in leadership roles, male professors outnumber women by 3 to 1, and only 1% of professors identify as Black (HESA 2024).
If you want to be inclusive, you should create a shortlisting and interview panel team group, team or advisory board and make those names publicly available as soon as possible when entering into the project.
Embedded inclusion work is vital to direct conversation within the programme, but resourcing this work generously and making sure that one inclusion lead doesn't have to carry the whole of that work is really important.
You're not always going to get it right.
Key takeaways:
Inclusion work needs to be generously funded and resourced, avoiding tokenistic engagement or seeing it as a 'spillover impact' of existing work.
Co-design programmes with third sector/businesses organisations whose work directly addresses questions of exclusion and inequality: they are experts.
Actively invite people from outside higher education to ensure diversity of background and expertise. This expertise may reside outside the creative sector (e.g. talent development, advocacy, third sector).
Design ladders of opportunity appropriate to new entrants to your sector. Talent development, early ideas funding and new start-ups are as important as service or product development for inclusive R&D.
When awarding grants, ensure that the individuals who are asked to shortlist and interview applicants for funding come from diverse backgrounds. Pay these experts for their time.
Test the language you are using in your funding calls with targeted communities. Consult with experts and communities directly so that team members responsible for writing funding calls can use the most inclusive language.
Place opportunities in the forums reflecting the communities you are trying to reach. This might mean thinking 'outside the box' of the usual networks and recruitment sites you use.
Transparency: your user community should know who is making decisions about investment and against which criteria. There should be clear recourse in the case of discrimination or complaint.

Programme Structure
The structure of your programme shapes the kinds of interventions you are able to make within the creative ecosystem you are engaging. Building collaborations across regions, especially building collaborations between new partners, can create a lasting, tangible legacy within local creative sectors.
Similarly, having structures that forge strong connections between research and development will maximise impact. In our programme, embedding early-career researchers within R&D cohorts brought many positive outcomes in generating new collaborations, publications and IP. Yet participants felt there was too limited engagement with university research across the programme in general.
What is agile enough? Systems and structures need to be legible to stakeholders and the SME community. Yet they also need to be repeatable and flexible enough to change over the programme lifetime, as events in the wider world unfold and demands on funders, fundees and the broader sector shift.
Where does your value lie? Through our programme, we have recognised that the creative ecosystem in our region is better equipped to support smaller, early-stage projects rather than scaling a small number of large projects.
These are political projects. Make sure that institutional buy-in for any culture changes you want to make is there, particularly in universities, to create a supportive environment for collaboration.
Key takeaways:
New partnerships across sectors or regions can be a significant legacy of 'clustering' processes.
Ensure that 'R' does not become separated from 'D'. Find ways to forge strong connections between university research and project development that maximise programme impact.
Clustering systems and processes need to be agile and flexible enough to respond to necessary changes but repeatable enough for the partners to manage. Some fixed 'challenge' funding and some responsive funds is, for instance, a good combination.
Establish where the value lies in the creative ecosystem you are supporting and orient your programme towards maximising this value.
Because conducting equitable and inclusive Creative Industries R&D is a novel practice for most cluster partners, it's important to attend to the work of culture change at the start of the project. Mobilise not only the front of house delivery teams but also legal, finance and other institutional support teams so that everyone buys into the project. .

Supporting Innovation
Creating an environment for responsible innovation can support the development of projects, collaborations, businesses, IP and learning in a sustained way over time.
It is generally understood that innovation involves an element of risk. Yet a significant proportion of individuals and businesses operating in the creative sector lack the capacity and resource to take such risks. Furthermore, institutions involved in R&D, such as universities, are traditionally risk-averse.
Supporting fundees in managing their own R&D - without the pressure of producing set outputs - gives them confidence to explore new directions in their practice. It provides opportunities for self-reflection and iteration which market demands might not otherwise allow for.
Connecting programme participants to those outside the boundaries of their usual professional circles can prompt new directions for project development and collaboration.
R&D projects that are exploring new directions will need easy access to practical guidance to help them navigate the practicalities that new working processes involve.
Alongside the 'cliff-edge' of funding end dates, the social relationships that R&D initiatives cultivate can often fizzle out when programme support ends. Yet these relationships are a potential source of further value creation.
Key takeaways:
Provide a supportive environment for self-guided R&D, which is focused on outcomes rather than outputs, to encourage confidence in taking risks and iterating to achieve innovation.
Provide as many opportunities as possible for collisions between a diversity of people across the ecosystem you're engaging with. Don't create siloes unnecessarily: many of the most valuable connections are unexpected.
Ensure that practical guidance (e.g. on business development, intellectual property, managing finances) is readily available for those wanting to take the next step in their development.
Build capacity to support R&D participants after programmes have formally ended, to maximise the potential of newly-established creative networks.

Programme Delivery
Programme Management
There are two approaches (at least) to programme management: a traditional one, where research programmes are divided up into work packages that have high levels of autonomy in terms of methodology, recruitment, investment and HR. The other is that all these decisions are made collaboratively, as the responsibility of the programme is to the whole cluster. This needs a holistic management system with a 360-degree view. However collaborative management systems still favour those with most experience, seniority and cultural capital.
If you want to create an inclusive partnership which celebrates differing needs and focuses, it is important to notice the inherent power dynamics at the beginning and formulate ways to work them through. You won't always get this right, but airing and interrogating these differences before you negotiate about resources would help to create a more coherent and mutually supportive partnership.
You might want to set up a management structure that is repeatable, adaptable and legible to outsiders, but also has some flexibility within it. However, you need to set some limits on your ability to change things as you go along. In big complex collaborations, making changes to how money is allocated, for example, is very complicated and causes lots of negotiation between the contractual and financial departments of your partners.
Flat hierarchies are hard to produce in a bigger team because of assumptions about working practices. The capital of people who have done the work before masks how people new to this type of work can input and learn. In our programme, for example, we never fully addressed who would design the calls for prototypes, which led to those with the most experience and seniority ultimately taking on this task individually.
Key takeaways:
All partners need to feel that their voices are equally heard in questions of recruitment, investment and methodology.
Co-investigator roles and responsibilities should be better defined and managed. HR and performance management in a devolved collaboration structure is extremely challenging but agreeing and documenting remits early can help.
Develop a common understanding of what is 'agile enough' at the outset and ensure that flexibility is built into the collaboration agreement. Collaboration agreements need to bake in an appropriate level of flexibility; redesigning the structure from scratch each time drains resources and adds complexity.
In bigger teams, address any hierarchical assumptions around roles/responsibilities and identify opportunities for less senior or experienced colleagues to learn new working practices.

Clarity of Communication
The size and complexity of large creative R&D programmes affects not only wider public understanding of what they do, but also how staff responsible for delivering programme activities understand their roles. Staff can have many different working backgrounds and areas of expertise.
At times, we found that staff working on one arm of the programme delivery did not fully understand what was happening in other arms. To prevent unclear or inaccurate communication, we found the work of translation between different parts of the programme structure to be very important. Translation can be directly built into staff responsibilities: for example, in project management, executive producing and/or communications roles.
We especially thought that the onboarding of partners could have been clearer, both in explaining what the programme was as well as the terms of exchange. Clarity is needed around what the arrangements for partnership are and what being a partner means.
In this same vein, paying attention to how you onboard new staff is important, so that the aims, values and cultures of the project are coherent across programme delivery.
Among programme participants, not being aware of what different activities are happening in other parts of the programme can limit opportunities for networking and collaboration. We found that participants in one cohort of activity often found the wider cluster to be hard to grasp.
Lastly, we have increasingly recognised the importance of clear communication in the story we were telling externally. How visible is this story to different audiences? How can we shout about the things we've achieved and how they fit into a bigger picture? What do we have to say at the end of a significant period of funded R&D?
It is crucial that processes for capturing data and communicating progress are in place from the very beginning. We could have also done more to draw upon the resources of our universities here, as we were short of the communication channels to articulate the great work that we've done effectively.
Key takeaways:
Because clusters and cluster support systems involve many different kinds of people and teams, it's good practice to write in the role of 'translator' into project management or executive producer roles.
Onboarding partners and new staff needs to be clearer and more standardised. What kinds of partnership models are available? What are the aims, values and cultures of the project?
Make different parts of the programme feel accessible to all participants, no matter which individual part they sit in. Clearly communicate where these different parts sit and how connections can be made across them.
Ensure the overarching story of your programme is as visible as possible and presents a 'bigger picture' of what has been achieved. Ensure that data capture, and external communication processes are in place from the beginning.

Programme Activity
Among our programme participants, there was almost universal approval for the model of bringing participants together within cohorts focused on particular areas of creative industries R&D.
However, within the cohort model of R&D, we have identified several aspects of delivery that could be refined.
The size of cohorts, in particular, has a significant bearing on what kinds of activity are possible. It became hard to accommodate the range of needs across our larger cohorts, where there were many different people who wanted many different things. Particularly when sessions moved online during pandemic lockdowns, having a large cohort limited opportunities for less structured discursive activities in smaller groups, which many participants valued highly.
That said, participants thought our methods of running programme activities online worked well overall. In future, coordinating a mix of online and in-person offerings can achieve an appropriate balance between widening accessibility while also providing valuable opportunities for connection, discussion, idea generation and iteration.
The relationship between early stages of discovery, research and idea generation, and later stages of design and prototype development, will shape what emerges from your R&D cohorts. You need to carefully consider how conceptual and research-led conversations can usefully inform the implementation of design ideas, while also providing an environment for prototype teams to develop innovative products/services efficiently.
The expectations of participants involved in the cohorts also need to be made clear from the beginning. How were different types of participants (academics, companies, industry partners, individual creatives, etc.) expected to contribute to the work developed through cohort activities? In terms of timelines, participants often wanted more advance warning of the dates when activities like workshops were taking place, as well as when they were expected to produce outputs. Ideally, these timelines would be the same for all kinds of participants in the cohorts.
Key takeaways:
Ensure the size of your R&D cohorts allows you to run activities that all participants will find useful. You will miss opportunities to provide the most valuable, tailored support if your cohorts are too large.
Online programme activities can be effective and convenient for participants but should be balanced with in-person offerings, centred on facilitating connection, discussion, idea generation and iteration.
Carefully consider how the conceptual/research-led and design/prototyping stages of R&D can inform one another effectively and continually over time. The linear structure we adopted, where a large, broad cohort leads to a smaller group of prototypes, might not be the best approach.
Clearly outline the expectations and timelines that different types of R&D cohort participants should adhere to at the beginning of the programme, ensuring these are as coherent as possible across the different groups.

Collaboration

One of the most widely acclaimed aspects of our cohort-led R&D model was how it brought together individuals from a wide range of contexts: in terms of personal background, in terms of professional journey, and in terms of interests and expertise.

In particular, participants valued the explicitly inclusive approach underpinning all of the cohort activities. They emphasised how important it was that the programme accommodated those who would not normally feel comfortable or able to participate in collaborative R&D, as they engaged perspectives and produced work that would not have been possible otherwise.

However, participants often wanted the programme to facilitate even more interaction between those involved. When R&D entered the prototyping stages, most participants felt that activity within the cohorts became too siloed. In short, engagement and collaboration with diverse people was something that was valued at every stage of the R&D process.

Consider whether there are opportunities to make your activities even more interdisciplinary and even more cross-organisational. For example, those who had been involved in one part of our programme often wanted more opportunities to collaborate with industry partners, researchers, companies and creatives who had been working in other parts. They wanted a greater representation of different disciplines and organisations in the activities they were part of.

When supporting collaborations, you should keep in mind that there is no easily-defined length of time that it takes to build project partnerships. Participants in our programme regularly mentioned wanting more flexibility in the allocation and expectations of their funding, to account for the varying timelines of collaborative R&D.

While 'labs' and 'workshops' are now established R&D activities, future programmes should have an increased focus on putting this collective learning into practice. Participants have a shared desire in producing something tangible at the end. However, they also want these outcomes to be informed by the often illuminating conversations that are held in the early discovery stages of collaborative R&D.

Key takeaways:

Be loudly and rigorously inclusive in your approach to collaborative R&D, making explicit how your programme opens doors for those who otherwise could not participate or would not feel comfortable doing so.
Avoid collaborative R&D projects becoming too siloed, particularly in the later prototyping and development stages. Engaging with a wide group of diverse people is something that is valued at every stage of the R&D process.
Consider whether there are opportunities to make your activities even more interdisciplinary and even more cross-organisational than they already are. Offer opportunities to support collaboration across different parts of your programme.
Be flexible in the allocation of funding for collaborative R&D and the expectations you attach to it, to accommodate the large variation in timelines for this kind of collaborative work.
Identify ways to put the collective learning from the early discovery and research stages of collaborative R&D directly into practice, with tangible and valuable outcomes.

Support Mechanisms
Creating an environment for responsible innovation entails establishing a series of support mechanisms for both programme participants and programme staff, which give them the capacity to do the best work they can while also caring for them as individuals.
Our formal support mechanisms for programme participants, such as accommodations for maternity leave and health issues, and allowing participants to pay themselves and their collaborators for their time, were widely praised.
Yet participants equally valued less formalised aspects of support. They highlighted how an atmosphere of informality was cultivated, whereby the programme felt like a fun, inclusive, safe and supported space, as well as a lack of hierarchy, where participants felt equally attended to and included irrespective of expertise.
Most important of all were the producers who worked directly with individual programme participants. Producers were especially important in helping participants connect with relevant people in their field or related fields, encouraging them as they developed their ideas, challenging them in their thinking and helping them to draw boundaries around their projects.
In terms of improvements, the most common response from participants was a desire for greater support in structuring their independent research time. While participants appreciated the programme's self-directed approach to R&D, many participants wanted more guidance in how they could get the most out of their time and not feel completely left to their own devices.
Among staff, the most mentioned opportunity for improvement in support concerned the pace of work. Delivering programme activities continually over multiple years was adjudged to have placed an unhealthy workload upon staff, especially when coupled with changing external agendas and expectations from funders and stakeholders.
Key takeaways:
Establish formal support mechanisms that are generous and progressive, accounting fully for maternity/paternity, health issues and labour that would otherwise go unpaid.
Foster a supportive culture within your programme, with spaces that feel fun, safe, supported and inclusive, and where participants feel equally attended to and valued.
Draw upon the key delivery role of producers in providing different kinds of support to participants throughout the course of their projects. Often encompassing a pastoral role, a care system within the programme is needed to support the producers in turn.
While participants value opportunities to work independently and define their own projects, don't cut them adrift: support them in structuring their time to work as effectively as possible. This can be facilitated by ensuring that producer support is sufficiently resourced.
Carefully consider the timelines of programmed activities, ensuring the pace of work remains sustainable and healthy for staff.
Exploitation Route B+B ended up exploring many alternative ways of working, from ways to carry out innovation that is responsible, to critical ways to practise inclusion to ways of supporting business development. We have documented these practices, processes and learnings and collectively created shareable toolkits and frameworks to help companies and organisations become more green, responsible, and inclusive. These guides and toolkits will allow others working in this field to take forward our learnings (the specific publications are listed elsewhere on RF)

Key Learnings
We drew together the key lessons we've learnt from running Bristol+Bath Creative R+D about running creative cluster programmes. We looked at the overarching design of the programme and how its delivery lived up to our key aims, which were to enhance collaboration, creativity, inclusion and open innovation. We hope our learnings can provide guidance to those planning to design and deliver similar R&D programmes in the future.

Responsible Innovation
We commissioned Dot.Everyone to develop recommendations on how to design and invest in creative technologies responsibly. Dot.Everyone explored the consequences of ubiquitous technology use through workshops with product owners, programme fellows, and the B+B executive team. Two participants from this part of the programme developed these ideas and formed Consequential, a community interest company that helps other organisations innovate in responsible ways.

Inclusion Framework for Change
Inclusion has been a key consideration of Bristol + Bath Creative R+D since its inception. Evident in many of the works and collaborations across the 5-year programme. We wanted to explore how we could codify and share the knowledge, learning and ideas of inclusion practice, and make this accessible to the wider sector. Born from insights from Inclusion Action Researchers, Inclusion Fellows, real-world case studies and Inclusion expertise - below we offer a framework to guide projects in increasing equity within a project, asking where change can come from, whatever stage they're in.

Climate Action Toolkit
Watershed has produced a climate action toolkit which offers an actionable framework for small creative companies to make progress toward net zero. Climate Action researcher Zoe Rasbach spent over a year scoping existing resources, conducting interviews and workshops, asking what was needed and how action could feel most achievable, and trialled the toolkit with Watershed's own teams.

International collaboration
In 2022, Made Culture in Lagos, Nigeria and Watershed embarked on a 9-month collaborative enquiry connecting our cities and network in a new experimental knowledge production process. This report brings together the process for producing collective thinking, including the tools and concepts it inspired, and insights towards building equitable and just international collaborations. We hope our enquiry inspires others to think forward towards globally connected futures and contribute to an ever-growing body of collective thought.

Creative Resilience Toolkit:
Tarek Virani (UWE Bristol) worked with researchers and creative businesses across the country to develop an online diagnostic tool which allows creative and cultural micro-businesses to assess their level of resilience to external shocks like the pandemic.

In additional to these general outcomes, there are more specific examples of how findings have already been taken forward. As the summary above this award, its practices and some of its teams are already supporting the development of the Bristol and Bath 'Strength in Places' My World programme (PI Professor Dave Bull, Co-I on this project.)

Our Pathfinders are a curated environment, supporting Fellows and industrial partners to make new connections that support production of original content, services, products, and experiences. The participants have been enabled to move forward with their own R&D agendas. Expanded Performance industrial partner BBC R&D teamed up with Bath industrial partner House of Imagination to implement the BBC's Adaptive Podcasting platform for a community of artists and young people. A trainee from Creative Workforce for the Future worked on that proposal, gaining professional experience and supporting the creative businesses. Industrial partners Real World, a record company and global events producer who run WOMAD festival, also worked with our Understanding Audiences research team at Bath University to conduct preliminary research in immersion that correlates facial responses to different online audio experiences. The Egg Theatre in Bath have transformed their approach to technology adoption, engaging with our Fellows and through our support they were awarded £25K from Innovate UK to develop this work into a core part of their business. Industrial Partner MAYK have leveraged the research conducted in the Pathfinder into a successful £500k consortium bid to Arts Council England (ACE) to showcase new work from this cohort at the Edinburgh Festival. Inclusion fellow Roxana Vilk developed a successful £15k ACE bid to continue her Lullabies project, which celebrates the diversity of cultures in Bristol, with technical support from BBC R&D.

In another single enterprise example. Bristol+Bath Creative R+D has provided award-winning international urban design agency City ID the opportunity to fulfil a long-held ambition to update and 'digitise' their mapping resources. City ID is focussed on improving people's understanding and experience of places, transport environments and mobility services through wayfinding and placemaking projects all over the world. Previously expressed via static on-street information and printed maps, the Digital Placemaking Prototype Scheme enabled them to join forces with Bristol-based locative app specialists Calvium and Bristol City Council to create PopMap. This project connects people to what is happening locally, tailored to their own interests, revealing the 'quirky, hidden and surprising' forms of cultural activity that may not be listed in more generic events lists online. Early into the prototype funding timeframe, the COVID 19 pandemic took hold and City ID had to rethink how they would find event data and test their platform when there were few cultural activities happening. Our support offered them time and thinking space, support from the delivery team, and a business planning process, allowing them to pivot to a new, highly relevant form of content for the same technology. This is based on connecting people to local services they might need during lockdowns, such as information about who is doing local delivery, call-outs for volunteers, and businesses' revised opening hours. Despite impact to their business as a whole, this aspect of their work has gained support through a £25k COVID-19 response grant from Innovate UK. This new trajectory has opened up business opportunities for the future, with Director Mike Rawlinson identifying 10 areas that they are now looking at, huge interest with their existing client base, and new regional conversations taking place due to involvement in our scheme. They have tested the platform with over 100 people and had an overwhelmingly positive response. They have made contact with 60 local businesses and demoed to 20. They have been successful on Innovate UK's Creative Scale Up programme, which will take them through an accelerated programme of specialist IP, spin-out, growth and new market development. Their prototype funding has also given City ID time and support for learning and skills development related to community engagement, tech/programming and project management. This allowed them to upskill and sustain their existing long-term staff who are already committed and share the company vision, rather than bringing in external expertise, contributing to in-house and regional resilience.

Our projects in the Here and There Pathfinder have also been enabled to develop new international collaborations .

Another outcome is the work carried out by another project that emerged from B+B. Developing from the Bristol+Bath Creative R+D Clusters Programme, Grounding Technologies was made possible through funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). As a sub-branch of the wider national Creative Industries Clusters Programme (CICP), over 2023 8 'Demonstrator Projects' were funded across the UK, with the aim to explore how new areas of the creative industries could benefit from the networks and infrastructure established through the existing clusters programme. As one of the 'Demonstrator Projects' Grounding Technologies sought to explore the creative use of emerging and everyday technology for climate action, addressing what it means to provide support for creatives who are foregrounding just transitions in the face of climate change. The project aimed to a) establish a network that gives a new focus for Bristol+Bath's aspirations for sustainability and b) support new projects exploring the contribution creatives can make across a spectrum of climate-focused works. Such ambitions were achieved through a programme of public calls that brought together activists, artists, designers, researchers, programmers, creative makers, hackers, social enterprises, commercial businesses and creative producers. Across 10 months, over 100 people engaged in the programme, with 6 groups each receiving £15K to develop pilot projects. In establishing a new network in the West of England that focuses on the role of creative practice and climate action, we've discovered a hunger across the region for working with emerging and commonplace technologies for bottom-up, social and environmentally engaged work. The region's deep history in environmental work, engineering expertise and technological know-how also highlights the value of bridging communities of practice. Our findings show that there is a wealth of potential in supporting interdisciplinary, cross-sector and intergenerational knowledge transfer. Through the transfer of creative methodologies into the climate action and green economy sectors, our work also demonstrates that further support, networking, funding and investment is required in order for meaningful, place-based, just climate action and transition to be cultivated at a regional level. In considering what meaningful engagement looks like and in supporting underrepresented voices, the emerging principles we set out in this document provide a foundation for establishing collective futures. Going forward, one of the key recommendations is that community-centred work is a must. Exploring the value of cities' greenbelt areas, the uses of medicinal herbs, access to green space, nature-based entanglements, media literacy and the use of data for environmental activism, the breadth and urgency of our 6 pilot projects demonstrated the value of bringing together a cohort of interdisciplinary, cross-generational, skilled creatives together. As evident in the feedback from our funded teams and their progression across the 10-month period, we are only seeing the beginning of their journeys. Findings from our cohort have shown that inviting creative approaches to a just transition can be done in a responsible, careful manner that moves away from business-as-usual, but that still allows us all to thrive. To deepen the impact of this work, we propose a re-focus on three key areas to address regional disparities of opportunity and identity: place-based, longer-term support and more flexible funding mechanisms are necessary for building meaningful collaborations across sectors and scales to energise a just transition.
Sectors Creative Economy

Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software)

Leisure Activities

including Sports

Recreation and Tourism

Culture

Heritage

Museums and Collections
URL http://report.bristolbathcreative.org/
 
Description Between 2018 and 2023, Bristol+Bath Creative R+D provided a suite of support to businesses, creatives, artists, and thinkers in our region. Participants received funding to experiment with new and emerging technologies, connect with one another, and develop prototype products and experiences. We also offered business advice, time to carry out research, and supported all participants in showcasing their works to new audiences. Through this five year programme, we developed an environment for the Bristol and Bath creative community which prioritised people over technologies: we wanted to ensure that the community would benefit from research and development in a way that was sustainable and inclusive, without the need for financial returns that often come with grants and funding. This programme was therefore not led exclusively by an imperative for economic growth; there was scope for using responsible innovation to create new cultural, social, and environmental benefits. This people-first approach enabled the community to experiment with new technologies completely on their own terms. This has led to the growth of the creative sector in our region, the development and diversification of businesses, and the production of new commercial and cultural outputs. Our key outcomes are: 97 new jobs created 18 new businesses established 72 new prototype products and services 60 new business models or pieces of unique IP £22 million co-investment (£64.3 million if including UKRI sources) 1.6+ million engagements with the public 360 creative companies engaged 290 new collaborations between 34 new international networks established 33 academic publications and 21 working papers 320+9 non-academic written outputs 498 presentations/public appearances
First Year Of Impact 2018
Sector Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
Impact Types Cultural

Societal

Economic

Policy & public services
 
Description AHRC Monitoring and Evaluation Working Group
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Membership of a guideline committee
 
Description Bristol+Bath Creative R+D was highlighted in a keynote address on Monday 8 June from Caroline Dinenage MP, Minister of State for Digital and Culture
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Citation in other policy documents
URL https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/caroline-dinenages-keynote-speech-at-the-cogx-createch-stage
 
Description Business Development manager responds to BEIS Select Committee consultation
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
URL https://committees.parliament.uk/work/342/postpandemic-economic-growth/publications/
 
Description Child Safeguarding and Immersive Technologies reports featured in UK parliamentary debate
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
URL https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/2023/child-safeguarding-immersive-technologies?ac=2...
 
Description Creative Climate Action Toolkit
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to new or improved professional practice
Impact Zoe Rasbash's work in producing the Creative Climate Action Toolkit has resulted in the following influences/benefits: - Provision of Creative Climate Action training to arts organisations Attitude is Everything: Disabled Arts Organisation and The Lowry, Salford and attendees of BEYOND 2022 - Provision of carbon literacy training for staff at Watershed, Bristol - Participation in Julie's Bicycle Creative Climate Leadership international cohort of 175 participants across 26 countries - Presentations and panel discussion at Festival of Nature, Environment Arts Education Group Bristol Ideas, Watershed, AHRC Clusters symposium, This Way Up Cinema Conference, Communicate Beyond COP 26, One Love One Planet BCFM Radio, The Studio in Bath
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/article/creative-climate-action-toolkit
 
Description Defining national Infrastructure for the Creative Industries - CoSTAR
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Participation in a guidance/advisory committee
URL https://www.ukri.org/news/shaping-cultural-and-creative-research-through-infrastructure/
 
Description Inclusion Framework for Change
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to new or improved professional practice
Impact Tony Bhajam ran an online session for the AHRC on the Inclusion Framework for Change on 14th March 2023, which was attended by approximately 25 people, following a previous talk at the AHRC and workshops at BEYOND 2022. This session was intended to provide guidance in developing more inclusive working practices within the AHRC as an organisation.
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/article/introducing-inclusion-framework-for-change
 
Description Prof Darren Cosker presented to the Westminster eForum policy conference on Immersive Technologies in the UK
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
 
Description Professor Darren Cosker (Bath University) participates in Immerse UK steering committee and UKRI policy Industrial Strategy group
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Participation in a guidance/advisory committee
 
Description Verity McIntosh co-authored report on safeguarding the metaverse, discussed in UK and EU Parliaments
Geographic Reach Europe 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
URL https://www.theiet.org/impact-society/factfiles/information-technology-factfiles/safeguarding-the-me...
 
Description AHRC Impact Acceleration Account
Amount £10,000 (GBP)
Organisation University of the West of England 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2024 
End 12/2024
 
Description Capital Uplift
Amount £247,556 (GBP)
Organisation Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2023 
End 03/2024
 
Description Creative Workforce for the Future
Amount £600,000 (GBP)
Organisation West of England Combined Authority 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2019 
End 04/2021
 
Description Defence and Security Accelerator
Amount £340,000 (GBP)
Organisation Ministry of Defence (MOD) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2023 
End 04/2025
 
Description Demonstrator
Amount £200,000 (GBP)
Organisation Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2023 
End 12/2023
 
Description ESRC/AHRC SHAPE Catalyst
Amount £50,000 (GBP)
Funding ID ES/Y01104X/1 
Organisation Economic and Social Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2024 
End 02/2025
 
Description HEQR Seed Fund
Amount £2,000 (GBP)
Organisation Bath Spa University 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2021 
End 12/2021
 
Description KE Dialogues
Amount £2,020 (GBP)
Organisation Bath Spa University 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2022 
End 12/2022
 
Description MyWorld
Amount £29,900,000 (GBP)
Organisation United Kingdom Research and Innovation 
Department Research England
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2021 
End 03/2026
 
Description New Scholars: ECR and PhD Training Scheme (Grant Title)
Amount £100,000 (GBP)
Organisation Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2021 
End 01/2022
 
Description SWDTP Doctoral Studentship
Amount £64,783 (GBP)
Organisation Economic and Social Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2022 
End 10/2025
 
Description StoryFutures Academy: Train the Trainer
Amount £20,000 (GBP)
Organisation Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2020 
End 12/2020
 
Description XRtists
Amount £6,000,000 (GBP)
Organisation Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2024 
End 01/2027
 
Title The Pathfinder 
Description 1. Each Pathfinder is a £500k themed package designed to deliver a range of benefits around industry challenge. These substantial investments will allow us to support high profile work, leverage additional finance and ensure large scale outcomes. Each Pathfinder will be comprised of the following elements: ? Pathfinder Fellowships (New Talent x 2, Industry x 2, Academic x 2 and Inclusion x 2) ? Innovation and partner R&D commissioning (industry partners, SMEs/start- ups and delivery partners) ? Business development (product development, business models for sustainable growth) ? Engagement (skills workshops, placements and mentoring) ? Showcasing (events, exhibition and distribution) PHASE 1: Consult on theme What are forthcoming opportunities and challenges in creative technologies for creative industries? What research can the universities offer? What play can the cluster companies make? Do we have partners to help us find audiences? Do we have partners to find further investment? What are the timelines and when can we do it? PHASE 2: Recruit key industry partners Each theme will have one or two key industry partners recruited by the Executive Team to co-design the Pathfinder with us. Our criteria for recruitment are: ? Institutional readiness for collaboration and future focussed R&D, ? Ability to deliver match funding ? Extent to which they offer route to market opportunities ? Commitment to the triple bottom line. The relevant member of the Exec team will hold an eligibility conversation with the prospective key industry partner, based on the above, complete an eligibility checklist document and bring this back to the Exec group meeting for decision making. Following ratification by the Exec group, an agreement of terms will be negotiated between the industry partner and our team, and we will issue them a contract and payment profile. Our offer to our key industry partners is: ? Shaping of and participation in a large R&D project where new talent, cutting edge industry and university research addresses challenges by making innovative work that finds its way to market/audiences ? Connecting with new talent ? Connecting with new ideas ? The opportunity for foresight thinking on the future of their market Our ask of key industry partners is: ? Contributing company R&D time (as a minimum) into co-designing the R&D challenge with us, working as in an advisory role on our productions ? Supporting the production of the work as a critical friend ? Supporting the outcomes of the work with finding a market at scale ? Supporting our ambition to create, social and cultural value as well as economic value (sharing business practice with new talent recruits, mentoring, offering placements, engaging in research conversations around inclusive growth) 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2019 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact Four new prototypes, numerous presentations ( see Engagement data), publication and further investment in project development. 
 
Description BBC data collection 
Organisation British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Department BBC Research & Development
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution AI workflow development - 1st joint denoising, colorisation and enhancement framewiork
Collaborator Contribution Filming and collation of low light video content at various light levels and parameter settings for a range of realistic scenarios.
Impact Dataset of low light video content used in joint enhancement and denoising of natural history content
Start Year 2020
 
Description Drone Simulation Virtual Production 
Organisation British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Department BBC Research & Development
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Creation of drone simulator
Collaborator Contribution Use cases, evaluation of platform, filmmaking
Impact None to date
Start Year 2020
 
Description Grounding Technologies partnership between Bristol+Bath Creative R+D Cluster and the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) 
Organisation West of England Combined Authority
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Grounding Technologies sought to explore the creative use of emerging and everyday technology for climate action, addressing what it means to provide support for creatives who are foregrounding just transitions in the face of climate change. The project aimed to a) establish a network that gives a new focus for Bristol+Bath's aspirations for sustainability and b) support new projects exploring the contribution creatives can make across a spectrum of climate-focused works. Such ambitions were achieved through a programme of public calls that brought together activists, artists, designers, researchers, programmers, creative makers, hackers, social enterprises, commercial businesses and creative producers. Across 10 months, over 100 people engaged in the programme, with 6 groups each receiving £15K to develop pilot projects.
Collaborator Contribution Representatives from WECA were part of our advisory board and executive team for Grounding Technologies. Environmental sustainability is one of the cross-cutting themes of the WECA Cultural Plan (West of England Cultural Plan (westofengland-ca.gov.uk), aiming to support cultural initiatives that promote changes in behaviour and contribute to accelerating transition to Net Zero Carbon. Involvement in Grounding Technologies offered an immediate opportunity for WECA to seed a new network for future development opportunities as they arise.
Impact Grounding Technologies supported the following six prototype projects: Eyes on Bristol Airport: Developing a website to capture flight and air traffic data to hold Bristol Airport accountable to its climate pledges. The Apothecary Network: Developing an app-based network of decolonial community apothecaries which centre growing, herbology, community, collective care, joy, and connection with nature in radical, anti-racist ways and reclaim green spaces for themselves and their communities. Focus - but where?: A playful online interactive crowdsourced zine/game that explores the intersection between climate change activism and our complex media / information environment, using eye tracking to explore direct climate action and communications. Garden Lab Whispers Grow: A community engagement project based on an allotment in Knowle West, investigating how new sensor technology can be combined with local, embodied and non-human knowledge to further climate action. Greenbelt 2.0, Rings of Resilience Resistance + Renewal: A project to reimagine the use of Greenbelt around Bristol through co-created mapping and animation using data from communities. Where Do We Go When We __?: An investigation into how creative technology might support the development of a multisensory experience to aid marginalised and neurodiverse communities in navigating nature experiences and climate action. In total the project supported the running of 23 public events with a combined audience of 907 people, led to 52 new collaborations, engaged with 126 businesses, trained 86 people and created 322 days of work.
Start Year 2023
 
Description Here and There Pathfinder Prototype Company Bristol ideas formed new partnerships with Aké Arts and Book Festival in Lagos and Toronto International Festival of Authors. 
Organisation Bristol Cultural Development Partnership
Department Bristol Festival of Ideas
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Here + There facilitated an excellent learning experience about what we share and where we differ, and how we change as a result - from management and governance to the opportunities ahead and the threats we face. Most discussions were hosted on Zoom, which has advantages and disadvantages, but we were able also to visit Toronto and Lagos and work with our partners face-to-face.
Collaborator Contribution We challenged 12 poets - four from Canada, four from Nigeria and four from the UK - to write poetry responding to The Waste Land. All 12 poems were published online, in a special zine - itself the product of a relationship with the designer Grace Kress (we were both on a linked programme on Amplified Publishing) - in print in Aké Review, and presented live and digitally in our three cities. Events have been held in our three cities. And we each ran events on linked themes of climate change, protest, and defending and extending democracy. In our 2022 Bristol Mayor's State of the City address we had a panel with Mayor Rees and the mayor of Kaduna in Nigeria live on stage and the Head of the Canadian Arts Council by Zoom - all three debating the future of cities.
Impact Our discussions looked at programmes to 2027. Some of these plans involve Toronto and Lagos - we're working on projects on James Baldwin, robotics, and the future of welfare states - others will work with new international partners. Our 2023 Festival of the Future City will work on Syria, Ukraine, and Berlin; one project on the 15-minute city for 2005 will bring together Bristol, London, Stockholm, and Rome.
Start Year 2022
 
Description The Amplified Publishing Pathfinder of the Bristol and Bath Creative R&D programme working with BBC R&D 
Organisation British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Department BBC Research & Development
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution BBC R&D were invited to participate in workshops with the Amplified Publishing pathfinder cohort to share expertise, build knowledge, creative ideas and collaborations.
Collaborator Contribution Content and Technology Partner Uniquely funded by the licence fee, BBC Research and Development is enshrined in the BBC's Royal Charter and agreement with the UK government to provide "a centre of excellence" for research and development in broadcasting and the electronic distribution of audio, visual and audiovisual material. Based in Research Labs in the North and South of the UK, the department is comprised of just over 200 highly specialist research engineers, scientists, ethnographers, designers, producers and innovation professionals working on every aspect of the broadcast chain, from Audiences, Production and Distribution right through to the Programmes themselves.
Impact Too early to report
Start Year 2021
 
Description The Amplified Publishing Pathfinder of the Bristol and Bath Creative R&D programme working with British Telecom 
Organisation BT Group
Department BT Research
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution BT have been invited to join workshops held for the Amplified Publishing Pathfinder cohort to share expertise, build knowledge, collaborations, and creative ideas.
Collaborator Contribution Technology Partner BT is one of the world's leading communications services companies. They serve the needs of customers in the UK and in 180 countries worldwide. Their main activities are the provision of fixed-line services, broadband, mobile and TV products and services as well as networked IT services. BT's Applied Research organisation supports the strategic aims of the whole of BT's business. We work with the very best technologists from all over the world, drawing research and technologies from partnerships with universities and academia, start-ups, strategic partners, Government bodies, other telcos and key customers. They apply their own deep research skills and expertise, combined with their business and market know-how, to deliver innovative solutions that better serve their customers.
Impact Too early to report
Start Year 2021
 
Description The Amplified Publishing Pathfinder of the Bristol and Bath Creative R&D programme working with Unreal/Epic Games 
Organisation Epic Games Inc
Department Unreal Engine
Country United States 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Epic Games have been invited to participate in workshops for the Amplified Publishing Pathfinder cohort to share expertise, build knowledge, collaborations and creative ideas.
Collaborator Contribution Epic Games is leading American interactive entertainment company and provider of 3D engine technology. Their Unreal Engine, provides a complete suite of development tools for anyone working with real-time technology. Unreal Engine is a complete suite of development tools for anyone working with real-time technology. From design visualizations and cinematic experiences to high-quality games across PC, console, mobile, VR, and AR, Unreal Engine gives you everything you need to start, ship, grow, and stand out from the crowd. Founded in 1991, Epic Games is an American company founded by CEO Tim Sweeney. The company is headquartered in Cary, North Carolina and has more than 40 offices worldwide. Today Epic is a leading interactive entertainment company and provider of 3D engine technology. Epic operates Fortnite, one of the world's largest games with over 350 million accounts and 2.5 billion friend connections. Epic also develops Unreal Engine, which powers the world's leading games and is also adopted across industries such as film and television, architecture, automotive, manufacturing, and simulation. Through Unreal Engine, Epic Games Store, and Epic Online Services, Epic provides an end-to-end digital ecosystem for developers and creators to build, distribute, and operate games and other content.
Impact Too early to report
Start Year 2021
 
Description The Digital Placemaking programme of the B+B Creative R+D project formed a new collaboration with industry partners including architects Stride Treglowan. 
Organisation Stride Treglown Group Plc
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Stride worked with our Digital Placemaking fellows to inform new approaches to placemaking. In particular Dr Paul Clarke ( University of Bristol Fellow funded by our programme) developed his Future Places Toolkit with them advising on user & market requirements.
Collaborator Contribution Stride Treglowan advised on the need for a new tool for public consultation in planning which was then developed by Dr Paul Clarke.
Impact Awarded funding by Bristol University KE investment.
Start Year 2019
 
Description The Digital Placemaking programme of the B+B Creative R+D project formed a new collaboration with industry partners. 
Organisation British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Department BBC Research & Development
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution We have faciltated a research inquiry for our partners around the theme of Digital Placemaking.
Collaborator Contribution The partners have worked with our research fellows to design business, technology and design outcomes for the use of creative technology in digital placemaking. Use case generation.
Impact We have invested in four prototypes in the field of digital placemaking.
Start Year 2019
 
Description The Digital Placemaking programme of the B+B Creative R+D project formed a new collaboration with industry partners. 
Organisation Stride Treglown Group Plc
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution We have faciltated a research inquiry for our partners around the theme of Digital Placemaking.
Collaborator Contribution The partners have worked with our research fellows to design business, technology and design outcomes for the use of creative technology in digital placemaking. Use case generation.
Impact We have invested in four prototypes in the field of digital placemaking.
Start Year 2019
 
Description The Expanded Performance Pathfinder of the Bristol + Bath Creative Industries Cluster Programme working with Real World Studios. 
Organisation Real World
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Connecting Real World with an innovation lab looking at future developments in performance.Leading to new participation in experiments in face tracking for immersive experiences in audio.
Collaborator Contribution Information on market conditions and user requirements in future audio development especially in regard to live performance. Teaming up with industry fellows and prototype team to develop showcasing opportunities for WOMAD festival.
Impact Real World were able to broker their research with us into a £49,000 Innovate UK Award.
Start Year 2020
 
Description The Expanded Performance Pathfinder of the Bristol + Bath Creative Industries Cluster Programme working with Sennheiser. 
Organisation Sennheiser
Country Germany 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Establishing a research conversation between live performers and Sennheiser as regards cutting edge audio technologies.
Collaborator Contribution Partnership with R&D cohort member Roxana Vilk to produce prototype project 'Binaural Baby'.
Impact Development of a proposal for a new piece of work 'Binaural Babies'
Start Year 2020
 
Description The Expanded Performance Pathfinder of the Bristol + Bath Creative Industries Cluster Programme working with The Egg Theatre Bath 
Organisation Theatre Royal Bath
Department Egg
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Introduction for The Egg of ways to digitise live performance during lockdown.
Collaborator Contribution Understanding and insight around young people's theatre and the impact of Covid.
Impact The Egg were able to receive £25,000.00 from Innovate UK from their Covid fund in order to be able to develop streaming capability.
Start Year 2020
 
Title Eyes on Bristol Airport 
Description The aviation industry is set for a huge increase in emissions with the government planning for an extra 70 million passengers a year by 2050. Despite years of opposition from groups, Bristol Airport has been granted an expansion - albeit with constrained planning conditions, such as limits on night flights and other metrics. However, it is difficult to check whether these limits are being upheld. Eyes on Bristol Airport brings local direct action group BAAN (Bristol Airport Action Network) with designers and developers to capture and communicate air traffic data to hold Bristol Airport accountable to its pledges. The software used monitors flights to check adherence to legal quotas and could also be rolled out to other groups fighting airport expansion across Europe. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact The production of a public website tool for members of the public to monitor the number of flights at Bristol Airport, to ensure the airport is staying within its legal restrictions. The development of software that could be shared with other airport action networks across the globe. 
URL https://eyesonbristolairport.org/
 
Company Name Agapanthus Productions 
Description Agapanthus Productions was founded by Rachel Pownall to explore the boundaries of creative storytelling in theatre, film and audio. Rachel's vision is to develop Agapanthus into an inclusive space where professionals work alongside members of the community to co-design creative projects to be enjoyed by a wide audience. 
Year Established 2022 
Impact Three creative technology workshops ran at Pill Youth Club; new IP: Ghost Orchid play
Website http://www.agapanthusproductions.org.uk/
 
Company Name City Global Futures Ltd 
Description City Global Futures is a consultancy that specializes in creating sustainable and inclusive cities and regions. They bring together people and ideas from different sectors to create positive futures for all. 
Year Established 2016 
Impact The company is working closely with Local and Regional authorities in the Bath area: The Renewal Vision for B&NES - Working with the new B&NES Economic Recovery and Renewal board to develop a Renewal Vision for the Bath and North East Somerset region The Bath Augmented Digital Twin Tourism Innovation Zones: our Turning on the Lights report into the UK Tourism Sector's appetite and readiness for new digitally-enabled services for visitors and smart approaches to destination management.
Website https://www.cityglobalfutures.co.uk/
 
Company Name Compound Footwear 
Description Compound Footwear recycles motorsport industry waste into sustainable footwear. 
Year Established 2022 
Impact Received £50,000 in follow-on funding from the Innovate Fast Start Grant; exhibited at the London Design Festival in 2022 to an audience of 600,000.
Website http://compoundfootwear.com/
 
Company Name Little Lost Robot Cic 
Description Little Lost Robot CIC is a not-for-profit collective of social practice artists focused on creating immersive and interactive art that raises awareness of the risks facing marginalized communities. They make large-scale, accessible, and playable artworks that fuse traditional and digital art forms and use community maker spaces to involve the public in design and installation. 
Year Established 2020 
Impact They are currently working on three projects to make cities more accessible and playful.
Website https://lostrobot.org/
 
Company Name Studio Susegad 
Description Studio Susegad is a home for creative production that focuses on rest, care and connection. It brings critical thinking, and curatorial, production and engagement expertise to the table to support those often marginalised by traditional production processes and leadership models. 
Year Established 2022 
Impact New IP: A-Z of Care Cards; Creative + Care project with Knowle West Media Centre
Website https://www.roseannadias.com/studio-susegad
 
Company Name Dhaqan Collective LLP 
Description  
Year Established 2022 
Impact Running an international project involving workshops with people in multiple countries; new IP in the form of audible tapestries that combine sound with physical woven tapestries; achieving £9,980 in follow-on funding from Arts Council England and £44,588 in follow-on funding from MyWorld.
 
Company Name Stormjar 
Description  
Year Established 2021 
Impact Stormjar have produced significant new IP: The Nightmare Market prototype and The Dive at Wax Cave film. They have developed a new business model off the back of this IP. They have hosted film screenings for public audiences at Encounters Film Festival and PYTCH. They have given talks and presentations at the Pervasive Media Studio (lunchtime talk) and The Studio in Bath.
 
Company Name Everything Is Cic 
Description  
Year Established 2021 
Impact Production of the Everything is Music location-based platform in Bristol, Bath and Amsterdam. Platform showcased at several regional, national and internatinoal events, including BEYOND Conference, The Great Escape in Brighton, the Night-time Economy Summit in Bristol, the Digital Heritage Awards in Venice, the Bristol+Bath Creative R+D Hopeful Futures showcase event. The platform has received press coverage from national and international news publications including the BBC and NME.
 
Company Name Muti Immersive Ltd 
Description  
Year Established 2021 
Impact Article exploring liveness and how different methods of capture, production, and distribution can be utilised to convey the sense of it to audiences via the Internet.
 
Description 22 new blogs on the B+B Cluster website engaging our creative community 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Blogs have been written by team members and fundees from across the Bristol+Bath Creative R+D programme (March 2023 - December 2023)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/articles
 
Description 41 blogs on the B+B Cluster website engaging our creative community 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Blogs have been written by team members, fellows from our Pathfinders and Prototype teams.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019,2020,2021
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/articles
 
Description 47 new blogs on the B+B Cluster website engaging our creative community 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Blogs have been written by team members, fellows from our Pathfinders and Prototype teams (January 2022 - March 2023)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/articles
 
Description 50 Online Presentations of work in Progress by Projects funded in Bristol + Bath Creative R+D due to Covid 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact During Covid our engagement programme moved online with a series of 50 events presenting & debating work in progress including the launch of our new online journal for interested publics 'Container' . We estimate that these talks, presentations, debates and events reached a combined audience of 10000 individual users across 2019/2020.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019,2020
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/events/
 
Description BEYOND 2023 presentations 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact BEYOND 2023, 22nd November: Simon Moreton, Liz Roberts and Jack Lowe delivered a paper entitled CICP Funding and its Affordances for Responsible R+D as part of the CICP Symposium organised by Andrew Chitty. Estimated attendance of 120 people. Simon Moreton chaired a panel entitled We Need to Do Things Differently: Responsible Creative R+D for the Future, which included panellists involved in B+B. Estimated attendance of 30 people.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://beyondconference.org/b23/schedule/
 
Description Bristol and Bath Creative R&D Twitter 290 new followers 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact 290 new followers since last entry (January 2022 - March 2023)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023
URL https://twitter.com/Bristol_BathRD
 
Description Bristol and Bath Creative R&D Twitter 3921 followers 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Current followers end date of December 3,921
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020,2021,2022
URL https://twitter.com/bristol_bathrd
 
Description Bristol+Bath Creative R+D Artist in Residence Final Sharing 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Bristol+Bath Creative R+D Artist in Residence Abigail Hunt held a final sharing event called Visual Conversations on 15th November, which gave attendees the opportunity to hear about and see the work she produced during her residency, as well as contribute to a collage themselves using images taken during her residency. Number of attendees: 50
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/visual-conversations-tickets-726741091167?utm_source=eventbrite&utm_m...
 
Description Bristol+Bath Creative R+D Research Sharing Event 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact Research Sharing Event on 3rd March for participants in the Bristol+Bath Creative R+D programme, led by Dr. Liz Roberts and Dr. Jack Lowe, with Network Mapping session by Free Ice Cream. Attended by 20 people.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Bristol+Bath Creative R+D Twitter 94 new followers 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact 94 new followers since last entry (April 2023 - December 2023)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://twitter.com/Bristol_BathRD
 
Description CAMERA live demos of XR experiences and real-time photorealistic avatars 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact CAMERA shared demos of XR experience A Matter of Life and Death and live/real-time photo-realistic avatar driving (including eyes and mouth) with performer. Bristol+Bath Creative R+D associate Naomi Smyth, with performance makers/creative freelancers at Pervasive Media Studio and with MA Immersive Arts students at University of Bristol, gathered responses from nearly 40 individuals, forming basis of feedback for inclusion in activity report.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description CKC 2023: New Futures for Creative Economies conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact 39 presentations were given at the CKC 2023 Conference hosted at Watershed, hosted and supported by Bristol+Bath Creative R+D. 94 attendees in total.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://creativeeconomies.co.uk/ckc-2023/
 
Description Climate Action researcher Zoe Rasbach has presented work and delivered workshops/training to diverse audiences (January 2022 - March 2023) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Zoe Rasbash has undertaken engagement activites on 27 occasions within the past year, including a workshop at BEYOND Conference, Climate Action and Climate Literacy training to a wide range of industry and third sector organisations, and events for young people at Watershed in Bristol.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023
 
Description Climate Action researcher Zoe Rasbach has presented work to diverse audiences 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Zoe has spoken for the below groups, invited them to speak, interviewed, or participated in workshops together:

Bristol Green & Black Ambassadors
WECA sustainability team
Black and Green Ambassadors
Bristol Green Capital Partnership
National Trust public engagement & youth engagement
Bristol Festival of Nature
Natural History Consortium
Culture Weston
Our Air Our City group
Culture Declares Emergency
Julies Bicycle
Julies Bicycle The Colour Green Lab
Nudge Group (sustainable architects)
Film Strike for Climate
COP26 Coalition Arts & Culture International Working group
COP26 Coalition Bristol
XR Bristol Arts team
The Resilience Project
Waves of Change
Global Goals Centre
Bristol COP26 union bloc
Bristol Junior Chamber
Earthly
Make money matter campaign
Artdoteearth
Creative sustainability
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021,2022
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCgfQd71_L4
 
Description Climate Action researcher Zoe Rasbash has presented work and delivered workshops/training to diverse audiences (April 2023 - December 2023) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Zoe Rasbash presented work and future research questions to the Julie's Bicycle Creative Climate Leadership Residential cohort (175 participants across 26 countries) and got feedback and buy-in from potential new collaborators operating in South West. Arts Council/Mediale Let's Debate Conference on the Arts Council Investment principles 13th-14th March: Zoe Rasbash was a table host and facilitator for the discussions, and guest curator for the Environmental Responsibility strand. 200 people attended. Black Earth Project Round up and Industry Showcase (13th March): Zoe Rasbash completed the investigation into creative sector and climate justice she and colleagues did in collaboration with Tiata Fahodzi. It closed with an industry event at the Kiln Theatre, sharing the work from artists commissions, Q&A with artists and panel discussion from contributors. 24 people attended.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Colloqium: university-industry collaboration and the CICP. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Colloqium hosted by Bristol+Bath Creative R+D at Wateshed: Towards a theory of high-level intermediation in creative industry clustering: A focus on university-industry collaboration and the CICP. Thursday 9th November - 15 attendees; 2 papers presented by Bristol+Bath Creative R+D team members.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Container Magazine (publication for creative technology in the South West) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Container, our online magazine that launched in November 2020 (https://containermagazine.co.uk). This publication is overseen by Editor-in-Chief Alice Quigley, and its editorial board includes Co-I Simon Moreton, Inclusion Producer Tony Bhajam and R&D Fellow Roseanna Dias. The magazine offers a range of content types each issue to explore questions of ethics around creative technology. It aims to avoid the homogenous, dominant 'Techno-Heroic' narratives of big tech or big data as providing all the answers and solutions, and instead creates a more critical space for a range of voices and narratives, that 'question, dissent and explore' to 'harnesses the powers of technology for social and cultural means'. The first issue featured articles on data rights, digital activism, and a podcast on queering VR.

As of January 2021 Container had reached 1.7k unique visitors.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020,2021
URL https://containermagazine.co.uk
 
Description Container Magazine 5 issues 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact CONTAINER magazine is reaching international audiences. As of January 2022 in had 11,200 unique website users, 609 Twitter followers; 315 instagram followers.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021,2022
URL https://containermagazine.co.uk/
 
Description Creativity Knowledge Cities Conference 2023, Bristol 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact CKC 2023: New Futures for Creative Economies was a 2 day conference dedicated to making visible different ways of 'doing' the creative economy. The conference aims to draw on the experiences, narratives, research, thinking, and stories of academics, makers, activists, and thinkers to imagine an alternative to our current model of creative work. Can we make an economy that is greener, more democratic and more inclusive? We had over 100 in-person and online attendees, including in-person and online international speakers and audiences.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://ckc-conf.co.uk/2023/schedule/
 
Description Designing Digital Cities event, hosted at Arnolfini, Bristol. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Designing Digital Cities event hosted at Arnolfini, Chaired by Digital Placemaking fellow Stephen Hilton (In partnership with The Architecture Centre, sponsored by Institut Francais du Royaume Uni)

How can the Smart City be reclaimed for the people?
What if human intelligence rather than artificial intelligence drives future development
How do we design digital cities as 'platforms for yes' rather than uniting people through opposition?
These are a few of the questions about #DigitalPlacemaking that Stephen Hilton will be exploring at 'Designing Digital Cities' with international acclaimed Brazilian-French Architect and Urbanist Elizabeth de Portzamparc and Jeff Risom, Partner and Chief Innovation Officer at Copenhagen based Gehl.
This talk is jointly hosted by the Architecture Centre and Bristol+Bath Creative R+D with support from University of Bristol's new Bristol Digital Futures Institute, Stride Treglown Architects and Institute Francais.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.bristolfutures.global/blog/designing-digital-cities
 
Description E Will Taylor (New Talent Fellow on Digital Placemaking ) presenting his fellowship research at Pervasive Media Studio Friday lunchtime talk 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact New Talent Fellow Will Taylor was invited to the Pervasive Media Studio Lunchtime talk to present the thinking he had been undertaking for an industry and general public audience, the work is concerns the relationshiops between digital space, public space and safe space, especially analysed from a the point of view of people of colour.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/events/
 
Description Engagement events hosted by The Studio in Bath 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact 586 people in total attended engagement events hosted by The Studio in Bath which were funded by Bristol+Bath Creative R+D.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020,2021,2022,2023
URL https://thestudioinbath.co.uk/events/
 
Description Engagement events hosted by The Studio in Bath (April 2023 - December 2023) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact 1011 people in total attended engagement events hosted by The Studio in Bath which were funded by Bristol+Bath Creative R+D.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://thestudioinbath.co.uk/events/
 
Description Engagement programme consisting in Bristol + Bath opening meetings, workshops to consult on themes, and bid development with companies. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact In the opening phase of the Bristol + Bath Creative R+D programme we have engaged with 113 businesses from the Creative Industries who have taken part in briefings, research development sessions, ideation workshops or applied for investment from the programme.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019,2020
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/
 
Description Hopeful Futures Seminar Series 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact A series of four panel discussions that brought together different sectors to discuss opportunities for sustainable and equitable futures in the creative economy.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbP2rruaw4Ot8GXmP904v0zM3hb_LHwlU
 
Description Hopeful Futures for Creative Innovation: Bristol+Bath Creative R+D final report launch event 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Hopeful Futures for Creative Innovation: Bristol+Bath Creative R+D final report launch event, October 26th at Watershed. Two panels involving B+B fundees, one talk from programme director Simon Moreton. Number of attendees: 139
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLrknvKzPuI&
 
Description Hopeful Futures showcase event 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact A two-day exploration of the future of creative technology, showcasing work produced by fundees of Bristol+Bath Creative R+D and bringing our community together in talks, workshops and panel discussions. A total of 355 people attended 33 sessions across the two days.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hopeful-futures-a-two-day-exploration-of-the-future-of-creative-techn...
 
Description Inclusion Producer Tony Bhajam has delivered workshops and presentations to diverse audiences 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Tony Bhajam has undertaken engagement activites throughout the Bristol+Bath Creative R+D programme, including workshops for the AHRC, BEYOND Conference, Connecting through Culture as We Age and MyWorld partners.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021,2022
 
Description Inclusion Producer Tony Bhajam has delivered workshops and presentations to diverse audiences (April 2023 - December 2023) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Tony Bhajam ran a feedback session with researchers on the Inclusion Action Research pathfinder for Bristol+Bath Creative R+D on 1st March. 10 people attended. The Change Engine (power, capacity, and resource) framework, supported by Bristol+Bath Creatove R+D, was launched and delivered by Tony Bhajam, Jazlyn Pinkney, and Gill Wildman during an inclusion away day held for MyWorld's work packages in early March. Approximately 40 people attended. Tony Bhajam presented on the Inclusion Framework for Change at a virtual showcase session for Watershed patrons on 14th March. Approximately 6 people attended Tony Bhajam ran an online session for the AHRC on the Inclusion Framework for Change on 14th March, which was attended by approximately 25 people.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Leticia Lozano presents at Watershed about placemaking in Mexico City. Leticia is co-founder and director of MACIA Estudio, a transdisciplinary practice challenging the boundaries between architecture, experience design and applied research. Hosted by Digital Placemaking Inclusion Fellow Roseanna Dias. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Leticia Lozano presents at Watershed about placemaking in Mexico City. Leticia is co-founder and director of MACIA Estudio, a transdisciplinary practice challenging the boundaries between architecture, experience design and applied research. hosted by Digital Placemaking Inclusion Fellow Roseanna Dias.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://bristolbathcreative.org/events/
 
Description Panel discussion with Amplified Publishing Sector in South West 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Amplified Publishing Event had 22 attendees. Amplified Publishing - Looking ahead to 2030
Thursday 26th November, 1 - 2pm
Chair - Kate Pullinger, Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries, Bath Spa University
Sam Robson - Director of Audience, Future (Industry Partner on Amplified Publishing)
Jodie Azhar - Co founder POC in Play, and CEO Teazelcat
Tom McNeill - Creator Partnerships Manager, Patreon
The panel of guest speakers will be responding to the following provocation:
'What are the most exciting and most challenging developments in your sector and, with these in mind, what could publishing look like in 2030?'
The conversation will explore some of the key themes and questions to emerge from the salon dinner in March followed by a Q&A:
What's new? In our broadly defined publishing sector, what new innovations with lasting impact have emerged during lockdown?
Changing the model (new ways of doing business): What kinds of new business models are possible? What no longer works?
Reaching and retaining new audiences: How will we engage new audiences in the attention economy?
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Recipients of CICP funding have presented work at Watershed lunchtime talks (April 2023 - December 2023) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Recipients of CICP funding have presented work at 9 Watershed lunchtime talks with a total viewership of 643.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.youtube.com/@watershedbristol/videos
 
Description Recipients of CICP funding have presented work at Watershed lunchtime talks (January 2022 - March 2023) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Recipients of CICP funding have presented work at 10 Watershed lunchtime talks with a total viewership of 1,654
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023
URL https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbP2rruaw4OvyHmG5tYtqgtJ67xIJ5rOf
 
Description Recipients of CICP funding have presented work at Watershed lunchtime talks. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Recipients of CICP funding have presented work at Watershed lunchtime talks.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020,2021,2022
URL https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbP2rruaw4OuTA4TQ9k2XdRGfky97bHKV
 
Description Supporting Fair Creative Economies (in Bristol and Bath) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact In this talk, Liz will be asking, what would an alternative Creative Economy look like if it wasn't highly precarious, often reliant on short-term contracts and free labour? If survival or success wasn't measured purely on economic terms? If 'soft skills' were recognised and valued alongside 'high skills' as integral to making the Creative Economy thrive? If collaborations were supported and opportunities better shared so that the 'creative entrepreneur' wasn't operating in isolation and in competition but worked in a supportive environment where financial and other rewards were more distributed? If creative workforces and freelancers had access to the same benefits as other workforces such as appropriate unions and benefits and had more of a say in what their work conditions looked like? If culture and creativity were understood as a right that everyone should have equal access to and an integral part of citizenship?
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6Ht-6vEPYw
 
Description Third Thursdays sponsored by Cluster, 6 workshops Oct 2019 - March 2020 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Third Thursday events sponsored by the research programme that brought together creative industry professionals from Bath with academics from the region to listen to work in progress presentations and build new networks of collaboration.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019,2020
 
Description Third Thursdays sponsored by Cluster, 17 workshops April 2020 - December 2022 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Third Thursday events sponsored by the research programme that brought together creative industry professionals from Bath with academics from the region to listen to work in progress presentations and build new networks of collaboration. Between April 2020 and December 2022, 798 people attended 17 Third Thursday events.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020,2021,2022
 
Description We Need to Do Things Differently: Responsible Creative R+D for the Future, BEYOND Conference 2023 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact A panel of expert makers and thinkers in the field of emerging creative technologies to learn why we need to imagine, support, and develop technology innovations in ways that are human and planet-centred if we are to build a future we want to live in. Hosted at BEYOND Conference 2023, London,

Asha Easton, Immerse UK Lead, Innovate UK KTN

Clare Reddington, CEO, Watershed

Rachel Coldicutt, Executive Director, Careful Trouble

Simon Moreton, Director Bristol+Bath Creative R+D, UWE Bristol

Stephen Hilton, Director, Bristol Futures Global Ltd
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://beyondconference.org/b23/schedule/