Open Call for India-UK Research into Creative Industries and Cultural Heritage

Deadline: 8-Jun-23

Apply for funding to build India-UK research collaborations within the fields of creative industries and cultural heritage.

Projects will demonstrate the value of the creative, cultural and heritage sectors to both countries.

Scope

• This funding opportunity aims to strengthen existing and build new India-UK research and innovation collaborations within the fields of creative industries and cultural heritage. Projects funded under this funding opportunity will demonstrate the value of the creative, cultural and heritage sectors to both countries.
• The funding opportunity reflects AHRC’s strategic prioritisation of India as a partner country and seeks to create a platform for long-term collaboration between researchers and partners from India and the UK. It builds on a series of scoping and engagement activities that took place in 2021 to 2022, taking forward some of the key recommendations and findings from this activity. It is being delivered by AHRC and informed by consultation with partners including British Council India and the Indian Council of Historical Research.
• This funding opportunity aims to support partnerships that will catalyse new research and innovation across a range of sectors. It acknowledges the different areas of strength and innovation in each country, and the mutual benefit of enhanced collaboration. The importance of cultural heritage to both countries, including connected histories, memories, and communities, provides common ground for heritage research collaboration. This will advance innovation in the field and seek to better understand future challenges.

Areas of Focus

• Projects must:
  • Be collaborative between researchers and wider partners in India and the UK
  • Demonstrate how they have considered equality, diversity and inclusion both in relation to the composition of the project teams and framing of the research itself
  • Focus on the creative industries, cultural heritage or both areas

Your application must focus on one or more of the following areas of focus. The sub-headings under each area are not exhaustive and are intended to be prompts to stimulate research ideas:

• Creative industries: innovation and sustainability in the creative and cultural sectors
  • Projects may focus on areas such as, but not limited to:
    • The role of the creative and performing arts in promoting community cohesion and wellbeing, supporting cultural exchange and facilitating connections with heritage
    • issues facing traditional crafts and textiles in India, such as:
      • The lack of access to new technology and sustainable design practices in parts of the informal and rural economies
      • The threat posed to traditional handicraft skills by new technologies
      • The implications of introducing new practices to the supply chain on employment, especially for women who make up a substantial part of the traditional crafts and textiles workforce
    • the emergence of ‘circular fashion’ in the UK and India, and the implications for India’s vast textiles sector, as well as the potential for traditional crafts and handicrafts to have a role in the move away from fast fashion to ‘slow fashion’
    • Challenges presented by the ‘data gap’ across India’s creative industries, particularly in terms of the lack of documentation and recorded data relating to the informal sector. As part of this, consideration of context-specific solutions to enable data collection that can inform decision making processes
    • the role of design in introducing sustainable and community-focused practices to India’s economy, including ‘green innovations’ in the creative industries, and approaches to reuse and repurposing for social wellbeing in both urban and rural contexts
    • Digital innovation through India-UK partnerships across the creative industries, including the application of technologies in cultural institutions and small and medium-sized enterprises
    • Approaches to collaboration between research and industry that foster innovation and entrepreneurship, including place-based approaches and the role of creative sectors in smart cities, and routes to commercialisation and research translation
• Cultural heritage: conserving and curating for the future
  • Projects may focus on areas such as, but not limited to:
    • Protecting forms and formats of cultural heritage outside of large and formally recognised or established heritage sites and museums, and how communities are creating more localised iterations of protecting and interpreting their heritage, both tangible and intangible
    • The importance of digital innovations for the sector and how cultural assets can be conserved and made more widely accessible using processes of digitisation. How there is risk as well as potential in using digital technologies to document histories that are complex, personal, and related to place
    • How cultural institutions and organisations have managed the impacts of COVID-19 and started on pathways to recovery from the pandemic. Additionally, the effects of the pandemic on cultural heritage more broadly and the ways in which it changed people’s connections to their culture and heritage
    • Challenges presented by the need for new skills within cultural institutions and organisations and what is needed to address this gap. Research in this area might focus on developing new methods of public engagement, outreach and co-curation
    • The role of heritage in sustainable place-making, including approaches to development and rural and urban challenges
    • as reflected in the India-UK Roadmap, the role of culture and creativity in building connectivity between diaspora communities through mutual learning and creative exchange

Cross-Cutting Considerations

• Creative industries: innovation and sustainability in the creative and cultural sectors
  • Within all of the sub-areas, there are cross-cutting considerations that projects might take into account such as:
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Digital methodologies
    • Intellectual property rights
    • Policy and evidence, where data gaps need to be filled to inform decision making
    • Environmental sustainability
• Cultural heritage: conserving and curating for the future
  • Within all of the sub-areas, there are cross-cutting considerations that projects might take into account such as:
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • The importance of languages and how vernacular sources are used and conserved
    • Geographies of cultural heritage, reaching those not formally or often recognised
    • Community engagement
    • Digital methodologies
    • Environmental sustainability

Funding Information

• Total fund: £3,000,000
• Maximum award: £400,000
• The maximum duration of each award is 36 months.
• Projects must start on 1 February 2024.

Eligibility Criteria

• To be eligible to apply for this funding opportunity you must be at an eligible research organisation.
• This is any UK higher education institution that receives grant funding from one of the UK higher education funding bodies, or a UKRI-recognised research institute or organisation.
• Your application must:
  • Be collaborative between India and the UK
  • Include researchers and wider partners from both India and the UK
  • Focus on one or more of the areas listed under ‘what they are looking for’

International applicants

• AHRC’s international co-investigator policy applies to this funding opportunity. If you are a researcher based in India, you can be named as an international co-investigator if you meet the eligibility criteria for international co-investigators. See AHRC’s funding guide for further information.
• Your application must be submitted by a UK-based researcher. They expect the design of the research project, plans for delivery, and dissemination are all co-designed and delivered equitably between researchers and partners from both India and the UK.
• Co-investigators from other countries outside of the UK and India can also be included where:
  • There is clear benefit to the project
  • The total cost for international co-investigators is not more than 50% of the total grant cost
• Equality, diversity and inclusion
  • They are committed to achieving equality of opportunity for all funding applicants. They encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers.
  • They support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances. This includes:
    • Career breaks
    • Support for people with caring responsibilities
    • Flexible working
    • Alternative working patterns

For more information, visit ARCH.