Criteria

Criteria for arts and cultural organisations

In response to feedback, we have included the eligibility criteria for the Fund under the "Criteria" link. These are not new criteria, but a re-statement of the criteria for the Fund already set out on the main page of the website.

Eligibility criteria

To apply to the Digital Research & Development Fund for Arts and Culture, you must be

1.    An arts and cultural organisation in England who wants to work with digital technologies to:

• expand its audience reach and engagement and/or
• explore new business models
  

"Arts and cultural organisation", "audience reach" and "business model" are defined here. 

2.    Your proposal must involve a partnership between yourself as an arts and cultural organisation and a technology provider (by which we mean any creative, media or technology company including other arts and cultural organisations with relevant technology know-how) that can provide technology services to arts and cultural organisations. 

Please note, if you are an arts and cultural organisation with in-house technical expertise you can partner with either a technology company and/or collaborate with another arts and cultural organisation. 

3.    Your proposal must fall under one (or more) of the fund themes: User Generated Content; Distribution; Mobile, Location and Games; Data and Archives; Resources; Education & Learning

Weighted selection criteria:

Each eligible application can be assigned up to 100 possible points, which will be allocated across four sections.

1.       Proposition (25/25)

• How innovative is the digital proposition insofar as it relates to the programme's audience reach/engagement and new revenue objectives?
• How important is testing the digital proposition for the wider arts and cultural sector?

2.       Project research and learning /Wider impact (25/25)

• How well suited is the project to testing the digital proposition?
• What potential does the project have to deliver data and research findings that are of relevance and value to the wider sector?
• What potential does the project have to deliver new products/services that can be shared and used by other arts and cultural organisations?
• How much potential does the project have for further research and development and innovation? 

3.       Collaboration (20/20)

• Technology provider - how well can the organisation identified as the technology provider deliver the work?
• Does the project involve collaborating with less digitally experienced arts and cultural organisations and, if so, what is the potential of the project to support innovation in these organisations?

4.       Project delivery (30/30)

• How well does the applicant demonstrate their ability to deliver the project?

o  Capacity to engage in the R&D - judge by marketing/sales capacity; buy-in from CEO/senior management

• How well does the project detail the resource requirements, including human resource, for the R&D project? The programme will not support the funding of capital costs and new permanent or existing core staff. 

• Does the project have a sound financial plan and does it represent good value for money?

o   Is the project conditional on other sources of funding?

• Can the project be completed in the timeframe?

Once individual applications have been assessed the panel reserves the right to take a final view across all projects in order to select those that meet our preference for a spread of projects (mix of risky/less risky; large/small organisations; radical/incremental innovations; geographical spread).