Deadline: 12 May 2019
The British Council is pleased to announce the launch of the “Creative Spark: Higher Education Enterprise Programme”, a five-year initiative to contribute to the development of the creative economy across Central Asia, the South Caucasus and Ukraine.
This programme will be run with seven countries in partnership with the UK: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
The programme has three key elements:
- the development of partnerships involving universities and creative institutions in the UK and in programme countries in order to drive enterprise training in the seven partner countries, including the establishment of enterprise centres.
- delivering enterprise skills training packages to students and creative entrepreneurs, ranging from pitching ideas and starting a business, to protecting intellectual property.
- delivering an English learning programme with a range of new digital English language learning content, including digital learning platforms, online courses and new massive open online courses (MOOCs) focused on English for entrepreneurship.
These partnership grants will support the design and delivery of interventions that support the development of enterprise education in universities, cities and in the partner country, which will in the longer term contribute to reducing unemployment by strengthening creative industries in these countries.
Themes
The grant applications are expected to focus on:
- skills development for students and young creative entrepreneurs.
- supporting new business activation and incubation.
- knowledge exchanges.
Funding Information
Each partnership will receive a maximum of £40,000 (this is to be used for one academic year – September 2019- June 2020).
Eligibility Criteria
- The partnership must be formed between at least one of the types of institutions/organisations listed below and at least one such organisation in a Creative Spark country (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan):
- university (or relevant institutions/institutes of the university)
- local/National Foundations
- public bodies (governmental, semi-governmental organisations working for city/national administrations with relevant focus)
- non-governmental organisations
- creative Hubs / Clusters / Innovation Centres
- The partnership must be formed between at least one of the identified organisations in the UK and at least one organisation in the programme country. The final version of the application must be submitted by the UK partner.
- Universities / local and national organisations in programme countries can initiate the partnership either with their existing UK partner or any other new potential partners in the UK.
- Partnerships may be one-to-one or involve a consortium (i.e. a small group of universities/institutions either from the UK or partner country). This must be a joint proposal in which the contribution of and benefits to both parties are clearly outlined.
- The partnership should allow for sharing best practice, learning from enterprise education and skills development for all parties.
- Both parties must have the capacity to administer the grant.
- Partnerships are intended to be self-sustaining once established. It is expected that plans will include how the partnership will be sustained after British Council funding has ended, including leveraging other sources of external funding.
How to Apply
All applications must be submitted online via given website.
For more information, visit https://www.britishcouncil.org/education/ihe/opportunities/creative-spark-fund