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

Each of the pilot projects were selected because they will produce research and data that other arts and cultural organisations will value highly and, possibly, develop new products/services that can be used by other organisations. A key element of the Fund is the partnerships between arts and cultural organisations, technology providers and researchers.

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

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

This report follows another paper, 'An analysis of applications for the Digital R&D Fund for Arts and Culture' (December 2011), which explores the demand for digital R&D in the arts and cultural sector by reporting some descriptive analysis of the 494 applications received.
 
Title: Digital R&D Fund for Arts and Culture: Case studies from the pilot
Published: February 2013
Author: Dr Paul Gerhardt

http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/assets/features/digital_rd_fund_for_arts_and_culture_case_studies_from_the_pilot