This report presents the findings from a survey of individual businesses that were in receipt of funding from the Creative Industries Innovation Fund 2008- 11 (CIIF 1). The report was commissioned by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI). The CIIF 1 was set up with the twin objectives of supporting business development and innovation in the creative industries.
This study focuses on the 133 projects promoted by individual businesses that received CIIF 1 funding and which completed in March 2011. A further 23 sectoral bodies received support. The awards to the sectoral bodies are outside the scope of this study.
A follow-up survey of assisted businesses was conducted between July 2013 and September 2013 to provide an update on their experiences since the end of their CIIF funding. Of the 109 recipients contacted, 71 provided a survey return. This report was commissioned to undertake the analysis of the CIIF update survey, to help in assessing the overall impacts from the CIIF support.
The study was also able to draw on a suite of four longitudinal surveys conducted over the lifetime of the CIIF 1. The longitudinal surveys were merged in order to extract a baseline against which the update survey findings could be compared.