Okay, hello and welcome everybody. It’s a pleasure to be with you today.

This is the Immersive Arts Funding Information Webinar. It’s a real pleasure to see so many of you joining us today, over 100 already from around the UK.

Special hello to the watch party joining us from the York North Yorkshire and Humber region and a very warm welcome also to those of you who are watching this recording at a later date.

So my name is Verity McIntosh to offer an audio description, I’m a white cisgender woman in my 40s with brownie hair, glasses and survey pigeon earrings.

I’m the Director and Principal Investigator for Immersive Arts and I will be hosting this session for you today.

A few logistical points to start us off and get us all comfy and settled in. you’ll find that there’s a Q&A box somewhere towards the bottom of your screen and this you can use for any questions that you have about the program as we go along. You can contribute questions at any time throughout the session.

And you’ll be able to see questions that have already been posted by other people. So if someone’s already put something in there that you’re also curious about, you can click to upvote that.

We have a fantastic team working with us today supporting the event in the background, ensuring that things are running smoothly, and they’ll be jumping in to answer some of your questions in text form as we go along.

That said, we would recommend holding specific questions that you have about our three funding strands, particularly in regards to things like eligibility.

Until a little bit later on, because we’re going to cover a lot of that detail with you in the presentations that are coming up. So please do put in your general questions and then we’ll get to the more of the detail when we have a chance to speak to you about some of those funding questions later on.

Other than the Q&A, there’s no specific chat function today. If you have something to tell us that isn’t a question and answer style question, for example, if you’re having technical issues, then you’re very welcome to email us and our email address is info at immersivearts.uk. So that’s info at immersivearts.uk and we’ll be keeping an eye on that today as well.

Today’s session is in spoken English and there’ll be British sign language interpretation for those of you who are not watching live.

However, if you do prefer to communicate with us in Welsh, you can type your question in the Q&A box in Welsh and one of our producers will reply to you in kind.

Throughout the session, captioning is available, so if you’d like to have closed captions, again, usually towards the bottom of your screen, you can click the CC closed caption button to give you a sort of transcript as we’re going along.

I’ll take a brief pause here. So if anybody wants to do that, they can do so now.

We are aware that lots of people will be listening today rather than watching. So all of our speakers will be providing a brief description of themselves and of the slides that they’re using as part of their introduction.

We will describe our slides as we go along to make sure that all of the salient information is shared verbally as well as visually.

Finally, we are recording the session for those who can’t join us today, or if you find that you need to leave early.

So we’ll make sure that this recording is shared online on our website along with the transcripts in the next couple of weeks. that will be available shortly on immersiveance.uk.

Okay, so we can get started. If someone wouldn’t mind sharing a screen. I can take you through a little bit of what we’re going to be covering today.

So thank you. So after I finished speaking with you in just a moment, I will hand over to my colleague, Joanna Billingham, who is the Senior Investment Manager in the Creative Industries team at the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the AHRC, one of our core funders.

Jo will be talking a little bit about the unique funding partnership that has come together to support this work. And the hopes that she and the funders have for this program.

I will then hop back in again along with my colleagues Asha Easton and Nina Salamance from the XR Diversity Initiative. one of the immersive arts consortium partners, and together we’ll be giving you more information about the programme as a whole.

Following that, we’ll be joined by Ruth McCullough, Executive Producer of Immersive Arts from Watersheds

Producers Lisa, Colin and Michelle from Consortium Partners, Swales Millennium Centre, Nerve Centre and Watershed respectively.

And they’ll be sharing the all important detailed information about the grant funding that we know we’re all here to talk about. And we’ll be going live very soon.

So as I mentioned, the Q&A section is available to you at any time during this session. But we will make sure that there’s at least 15 minutes towards the end for a live Q&A where the team will be able to take some of your questions live and go into a little bit more detail.

So all of that said, it is now my pleasure to hand over to Joanna Billingham from AHRC to take it from here.

Over to you, Jo.

Hello there. I’m not sure my video’s on at the moment. Let’s just see if we can Make that work. No, that’s fine. Yeah, so my name is Joanna Billingham and to self-describe, my pronouns are she and her.

And I’m a white woman in my 50s with long brown hair and glasses. And today I’m wearing an olive jumper.

As Verity said, I’m a senior manager for the creative industries at the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Also part of the wider UK research and innovation. And today I am really proud to be representing a unique partnership of five funders who are funding the program.

And that comprises of Arts Council England, Arts Council of Wales, Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Creative Scotland and AHRC.

And we’re really excited about this program, which we as funders started to plan for about two years ago.

And we’re really, really pleased to be working with the Immersive Arts Consortium to help deliver this three-year, £6 million program.

Which will bring creative immersive research and development across all parts of the UK.

Next slide. A little bit about the background to the program. So we’re building on a lot of prior learning here with

starting the immersive arts programme. And a key program was CreativeXR that was funded by Arts Council England and Digital Catapult.

And that enabled UK creative teams to experiment, iterate and make ideas for immersive projects becoming a reality.

But the immersive arts program is now extending the reach out to the whole of the UK.

The creative industries clusters Programme This had several programs which were

based in UK regions and several of these had a focus on creative immersive tech.

And currently we’ve got the CoStar Labs. This is also funded by AHRC, as were the Creative Industries Clusters Program.

And these are currently active. And these are large scale projects linked to screen and production across the UK.

But this time funders wanted to build on all of these but support a new program with inclusion and accessibility at its heart, providing UK-wide support from grassroots level up. And that is how immersive Arts as an idea started to form and it’s unique in this landscape.

Funders are also really excited about potential for the sector the wider creative sector.

such as giving more UK artists access to facilities, training and mentoring in the immersive arts arena.

opening up new creative possibilities and nurturing connections maintaining the UK’s position at the forefront of the creative industries worldwide and influencing policymakers.

and providing more inclusive opportunities to share stories with impact through the use of creative technology.

So we’re really looking forward to seeing how things unfold. This slide, by the way, shows an image of people at a festival waving flags, a kind of celebrity celebratory image.

And the next slide is about the exciting outcomes that we as funders were anticipating for the program.

We are… really we were really hoping to support the idea of having different levels of award, as you’ll see coming up soon when Verity and team start to speak more about

the different levels of awards that you could apply for but also training and skills opportunities

plus research, showcasing events. and all sorts of networking events across the whole of the UK.

And the immersive arts team will um tell you more about this, as I’ve said, but they’re already starting to make this happen in really new and exciting ways.

However, I really wanted to thank you as an audience and potential applicants to this program for your interest in this program, because without the applicants, without the audience, none of this would come to fruition and be possible.

So a huge thank you to you and a big thank you to the Immersive Arts team and to all my fellow funders.

For all your work so far and we’re really, really proud to be working with you all And now to pass back to Verity and the Immersive Arts team for more on the program. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Jo. That’s wonderful. So on screen now we have a large print with the word immersive arts, the name of the program and the subtitle, Imaginations Unleashed.

with a kind of comic character who is a bit of a cloud with long legs jumping over the text.

And immersive arts is the name of our program, and I’m going to tell you a little bit more about the program as a whole now and give some context.

Its name here is Immersive Arts, but its name is also kind of the Diandra Hall, and that’s the name that’s now on screen with the same character and the same line. Because it’s a bilingual program and it’s important to us that everything that we share with you is available in English and Welsh. This session will be delivered in English as my first language, but all of the information when it goes live will be available by link

So what is it and how are we choosing to kind of address and shape all of those wonderful aspirations that Joe mentioned?

My next slide is a slide that says watch and has a number of pictures of immersive experiences that we’ve been involved with before. And what we’re describing through this slide is that this is a six million pound development scheme.

It’s been designed to support artists across Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England to engage with immersive technologies.

Throughout this process over the next three years, we’re looking forward to working with over 200 artists who will be supported through an inclusive and accessible program of research, training, events, and the important 3.6 million pounds of grant funding that we again will give you some detail on shortly. I know it’s being very coy, not giving you the detail yet, but we’re here to share that with you today.

So I guess one of the questions is who are we? This slide says who, and it gives the details and the logos of the consortium partners, as well as the funders who are involved in this program. And I think it’s helpful to introduce ourselves a little bit so you know who we are.

So immersive Arts is run by a highly collaborative consortium of 10 partners, all of whom are already embedded within the UK’s immersive arts and research communities. And together we are committed to creating positive change in the sector of the type that Joe has started to describe today.

So the program lead is the University of the West of England, otherwise known as UE Bristol, which is where I work. Our program hub is the Pervasive Media Studio, which is a creative technology research and development space, which is run by Watershed in partnership with UE Bristol and the University of Bristol.

And the exec producer for this scheme is also Watershed. We have strong research partners between UI and the University of Bristol and also the Innovate UK Immersive Tech Network who are really active in the research space in this sector.

We have a number of producing partners who are very actively involved with creative communities in each of the four nations. In England, our producing partner is Watershed and they’re based in Bristol.

In Northern Ireland, our producing partner is Nerve Centre and they’re based in both Derry and Belfast. In Scotland, the producing partner is Cryptic and they’re based in Glasgow. And in Wales, the producing partner is Wales Millennium Centre and they’re based in Cardiff.

We also have partners who work very much across the whole of the UK. So crossover Labs are partnered in this scheme and they are immersive media training and artist development experts, and they’re based in Sheffield.

And unlimited are experts in commissioning disabled artists and challenging and changing perceptions of disability. They’re based in Wakefield.

And finally, the XR Diversity Initiative, who I’m going to be introducing to speak with you in a moment, are focused on promoting inclusivity in the exile community, and they’re based primarily in London.

So the funding for the immersive arts scheme, as we’ve heard, is provided through a really quite unique combination of funders. It’s a unique and novel collaboration between the Arts and Humanities Research Council, where Joe works.

Also Arts Council England, the Arts Council of Wales, Creative Scotland and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

We are very grateful for the continued support and the vision that all of these funders have shown in working together and supporting us in putting this program together.

We’re also extremely fortunate to be supported by an extraordinary advisory board with experts joining us from all around the world to support this project and celebrate UK creativity.

We are connected through them and through our networks and through you to a global community of practice. We see ourselves very much in that global context.

So, elephant in the room. This is a slide that says immersive dot dot question mark

And there is a little character who looks quite confused. He’s got a scribble face and eyes and I’ve just gendered him for some reason. So we’re just going to swap genders around variously. She’s got a single leg and they are looking quite muddled.

So we know that immersive art as a sort of phrase as a set of words has many meanings for different people across many sectors and in different contexts, immersive can mean different things.

So to try and help set some frame for what we might mean in this program, which is by no means the only definition, but it helps to have one so you can help to find yourself with us within that.

For this program we mean Art that uses technology to actively involve the audience.

So we’re interested in the use of virtual augmented and extended reality in the creation of artwork that bridges between physical and digital spaces.

artwork that perhaps engages multiple senses, an artwork which connects people to each other. or to their environment.

It’s deliberately quite a broad definition. We are less interested in specific technologies as we are interested in the artistic potential of these emerging tools and technologies.

And so we’re hopefully giving you enough of a description to help you start to think about how you might find a relationship to the program.

But we’re also not trying to limit your creative practice or close down avenues of experimentation.

One of the ways that you can connect with the program is through our training and events. This slide says training and events and has a picture which is taken from one of our inspiration days at Wells Millennium Centre in Cardiff just a couple of weeks ago where artists came together to think about how they might engage with the program.

We are running a really broad range of events and training sessions, these ones led by our consortium partners, Crossover Labs, and we’re providing opportunities across the program for those who are involved with our funding programs and for those who are not. So we’re really keen to work with the broadest community possible through our events program.

In the last few weeks, we’ve been hosting inspiration days around the UK. We’re in Sheffield tomorrow and Bristol on Friday. If you haven’t met us yet.

And those inspiration days have been designed to support those who already work in the arts but may be new to immersive technology and curious about what it might bring to their creative practice.

We’ll be continuing to run big and small events over the years and please do sign up to the newsletter if you haven’t already as a way to be kept up to date with the latest program of activity.

Training and development activity is also integrated into the support that we offer those who are successful in applying for grant funding.

And we will be working with funded artists and teams as a way to share learning, expertise, to open up networks, and to amplify what they can do whilst they’re on the program with us.

Producers in each of the four nations will be working closely with artists and with each other to foster a sense of kinship and community, as well as connecting up activity across the UK and globally.

Our amazing partners at Crossover Labs, Unlimited and XR Diversity Initiative will be running tailored events throughout the years

offering activities that will support people with different lived experience and at different stages of their creative development.

The next slide has a picture of some people sort of sat in the dark with some red lasers and the words immersive arts surrounding them.

And the other title for this slide is research. So this is about the research remit for the program.

Research is very much an integral part of this project and it runs through all aspects of immersive arts.

So the core research team is based at the University of West of England and University of Bristol and at Innovate UK Immersive Tech Network.

Additionally, our producers who are working in each of the four nations are all what we would call action researchers. So they are very much involved in setting the research agenda and looking at the program holistically. So the producers will be working closely with the community of artists on this program to share learning and to advocate for positive change in the sector.

In terms of the research questions that we have for the scheme, we have three core themes that we will be looking at across the different tenants of the program.

The first of these is artist and audience development. So some of our questions that we have for the whole program are what appeal do immersive realities hold for artists?

What ambitions do you have for these emerging forms? What concerns do you have about the impact of immersive technologies and art forms on the wider sector?

how do we design for and with diverse access requirements? We have questions about tools and technology. So we are very strong believers in artist-led development of tools and technologies. We think artists ask really great questions of technology and often are really powerful innovators in the way that they will interrogate and critique emerging technologies within our society and within our culture.

So we have questions about the use of technology in art and culture, the integration of things like artificial intelligence, ethical approaches to data and privacy. We’re really keen to not just sort of take an instrumental approach to immersive tech, but we look at what it means for our culture.

And our third theme is infrastructure and ecosystem. So we are looking together at what already exists in the UK in terms of that connective tissue to support the sector.

And what’s already happening in the global context? What is missing? What can we connect to? What can we build?

So there’s a broad range of questions that we’re exploring across the whole program.

Don’t worry, we’re not asking artists applying for grants to be able to sort of send us a list of the answers to those questions, but I think it’s helpful for you to understand the kind of the overarching aims and the things that we’re curious about as we work with this incredible community of practice that is starting to develop now.

So hopefully that gives you a bit of a flavor for the program. From that point of view, I’m now really pleased to hand over to my colleagues, Nina Salomans and Asha Easton from the XR Diversity Initiative

who will be talking a little bit more about some of the core values that have shaped and continue to shape this program. Over to you, Nina.

Hello, I hope you can all hear me and see me. I am Nina Solomitz. My pronouns are she, her. I’m an Asian woman in my early 30s with long black hair, and I’m wearing a white jumper.

Visually, this slide is rose pink with white text saying centering equality, diversity and inclusion with funky characters of different shapes and sizes staring at it.

I’m the co-founder of the XR Diversity Initiative, where we empower marginalized and underrepresented communities by upskilling them with immersive technology workshops.

The immersive Arts program is designed to be welcoming, inclusive, and accessible and a program that celebrates and reflects the rich diversity of artists living in the UK.

This whole consortium is committed to making sure that this is going to be very accessible and very inclusive.

We’re working alongside Unlimited, who are the leading commissioner of disabled artists within the UK, with a mission to challenge and change the cultural sector to open up access and inclusion within the cultural sector.

Together, we are helping shape the immersive art ED&I strategy. We aim for disabled artists.

and artists from other minoritized backgrounds to be able to seamlessly take part in the immersive arts program. We do not want to have to separate

artists and put them in different tracks for disabled artists. We want everyone to be fully integrated and be involved with everything that is taking place.

We also want artists overall to think whether They are creating artwork that is accessible for everybody. So whether it’s

yourself or the team or thinking about how the content is going to

be perceived by audiences, we want you to think about that throughout your whole process. We don’t want people to be considered different, difficult, or divergent.

Why is this important? Well, it’s needed in order to recognize the history of structural imbalance across the cultural sector, we want to make a real commitment to make the sector inclusive for everybody.

a real commitment to change. We want to make a change in a way that immersive arts can show up for you as a community.

And we hope that it is reflected here today. We have a program that is backed up with clear targets across all aspects of the program and represents all the artists that we support.

I’m going to hand it over to my other co-founder, Asha. Great. Thanks, Nina. So hi, everyone. My name is Ash Easton. My pronouns are she, her, and I’m the other co-founder of XRDI. I’m a mixed race woman from an Indo-Guyanese and English background with long, curly dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing a long black sleeve top and a silver necklace.

And visually, the slide that is up now is white background with some pink and black writing and two little characters to the right looking at the text that look like clouds. And it’s just saying some of the information that I’m going to go through right now.

So what are we doing to embed accessibility and inclusion into the immersive arts program? So we’re going to have access support built into all of our events. We’re going to have an accessible application process, which includes accessible guidelines, various ways to submit your application, and tailored access support where necessary.

We have direct access support for artists with disabilities who find it difficult to apply without having somebody working with them. And we have some funding allocated for that, which you can reach out about.

We’ve got a transparent balancing process in place in order to hit proportional targets, and we will be taking a portfolio approach to balance applications to ensure equal opportunity across gender, ethnicity, accessibility needs, and all the different countries and regions across the whole of the UK.

And we have tailored access support for funded artists once they are actually on the program. For example, for a funded artist on the experiment strand who can’t do a consistent nine to five day every single day, we can create a relaxed track for them to follow the program over a longer period. So that’s just one example of the ways that we can adapt the program for people with different access needs.

All of our funded artists will also be supported to help them think about access requirements in the earliest stages of design of their project to test their work with diverse audiences and to think about accessibility and distribution. So we believe centering ED&I will make the program more joyful and abundant for all, we hope. And while this is how we are launching in round one, this is an iterative process for the team

And we plan to be flexible about changing processes as we learn and gather very welcomed feedback from the community. So we will be hosting another event and ask about access drop-in session on October 30th from 11 to 12 to give more space for conversation about our approach and to answer any specific questions you might have. So I’ll drop a link in the chat to register for that event as well if

If you would like to join. And with that, I will pass back to Ruth to continue discussing the details of the different funding strands. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Ruth McCullough and I’m the executive producer in the program. My pronouns are she, her. I’m a white woman in my mid-40s with long, thick grey hair and I’m wearing a gray jumper and red earrings today. So I’m going to talk about the funding first off and then I’ll hand over to the producers to tell you more about each of the strands. This slide that I’m showing at the minute

Just says artist funding and it gives And over a few 50 strands, which I’ll talk through. So Immersive Arts will offer three rounds of funding over the next three years. Each round will have three strands of funding available. Explore, which is £5,000. Experiment, which is £20,000, and Expand, which is £50,000. So each strand has been designed to support artists at different stages of their creative development.

And also being designed for the ability to artists to move through those strands through rounds if applicable.

So eligible artists can submit an application to one strand in each funding round and then apply again for subsequent rounds whether or not they’ve been funded in an earlier application.

So I’m going to hand over to some of the members of the national producing team to share more on each strand and I’ll come back and tell you more about how and when to apply. So I’m going to hand over to Lisa, our producer in Wales.

Okay. My name is Lisa Hellad-Jones and I’m one of the Wales producers based in Glindovedwy in North Wales.

My pronouns are she, her, and just for a quick audio description, I’m white with wild curly blonde hair and big brown glasses wearing a stripey black and white top.

And I will introduce the slide which has a white background with black text and a navy cloud character jumping up

with delight. I will introduce you to the Explore Strand, which offers £5,000 of funding.

This is ideal for artists with little or no experience in immersive arts. it’s open to individuals, small creative collectives or organisations with 10 people or fewer.

The fund can be used for things like early stage exploration of immersive technologies, developing basic immersive art skills, experiencing immersive artworks, meeting collaborators and expanding your immersive networks.

Successful applicants will receive support for up to six months from the immersive arts producers and our wider network.

Now I’m going to pass over to Colm, our producer in Northern Ireland.

Hello, my name is Colin Mall. I’m the producer for Northern Ireland at Nerve Centre. My pronouns are he, him.

I am a white man in my early 40s with short dark hair and a beard, and I’m wearing a headset and a navy jumper.

On this slide, we’ll detail the experiment strand, which is for £20,000.

And on the slide, there’s a small character and the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

So the experiment strand is ideal for artists who are ready to get their ideas off the ground.

Individuals, small creative collectives or organizations of 10 people or fewer

This is aimed to help artists to create experimental works Proof of concept or prototypes and the test with small audiences.

Experiment with immersive technology to develop your practice. Consider access, diversity and inclusion relevant to your project.

This is supported up to nine months with training for your development labs on idea development

User experience, approach and audience strategy. opportunities to test and to refine prototypes with small audiences.

And I’m going to pass you over now to my colleague, Michelle.

And I’m the immersive arts producer supporting artists based in England. I’m working with the team at Watershed in Bristol.

And my pronouns are she, her. I’m a white woman in my 50s with short cropped grey hair.

Wearing glasses and a pale blue jumper. And the slide on the screen is a text summary

of the expand strand of funding, which is for £50,000. And there’s a funky character

which looks like it’s expanding. Though you don’t have to do that if you’re applying for the funding. The expense strand is ideal for artists with an immersive project already in development

At whichever stage? For creative collectives and organisations of

50 people or fewer. And we intend it to help artists to significantly progress existing projects or prototypes.

to bring well-developed concepts to fruition. to enhance their audience engagement and the reach of their project.

and to consider access, diversity and inclusion relative to the project. Successful projects will be supported for up to 12 months.

with a bespoke mentoring from Crossover Labs. And our partnership and our networks.

You’ll get support to develop and implement the project. and opportunities to enhance and scale the impact of the work.

And I’m going to pass you back now to Ruth.

So I’m going to talk more about the eligibility side of things. So who can apply? This is a simple white slide with text saying who can apply and a list of eligible

criteria so it’s the fund is open to individual artists, creative practitioners or creative technologists, or you can be an arts based organization small group or collective and as the producers mentioned there, the Experiment and Explore Fund are focused on organisations with up to 10 people or staff or fewer and expand is open to organizations with 50.

Up to 50 staff or fewer. you need to be based in the UK, aged over 18 and have a bank account with your name on it.

So the good stuff, what can you apply for? And this slide similarly is white with text saying, what can you apply for? And I’m going to talk through the different elements that you can. And we have one of our experiment characters on a skateboard taking off beside the tech.

So you can apply for project development. That could be planning, research or development of your immersive arts projects, materials and equipment so purchase or rental of materials, equipment or software licenses and other technical tools.

professional fields so that could be payment to artists, collaborators, technical support or other professionals you’re working with. And we really encourage you to pay yourself and artists and anyone else involved in your project fairly and the guidelines provide some resources on fair pay across the UK.

You can also apply for training fees. So that could be informal or formal supporter learning related to the project, travel and accommodation and subsistent, and that could be for meeting collaborators, working on research or attending residencies, relative events or workshops.

You can also include marketing and audience development. That’s specifically for experiment expand strands.

Which would have some audience facing activity. We’re not expecting that at the explore stage. You can include venue hire for studio spaces or if required for the project and you can include access and inclusion costs. So cost to support accessible and diverse inclusive audience engagement and participation.

That’s a note for your own personal access requirements. There’s separate funding and support available through that, which the team touched upon earlier. And the last thing to say is you don’t need much funding in order to apply.

So when and how to apply. So this slide again is a simple table with dates and text of each strand, which I will run through. So the rounds will open this week and on Thursday and all three strands will be open for seven weeks and close in early December.

All applicants will be notified in February. With projects kicking off in March and there’s a recap of the project durations on this slide with explore being up to six months support, experiment up to nine months support and expand up to 12 months support. Expand is a slightly different application and timeline with applicants making a simple stage one application, then shortlisted candidates will be invited to a second stage interview.

And they’ll be notified of that in January and invited to interview in February.

So an applications can be made through our online portal, which will be live later this week, and you’ll be able to set up an account and you’ll be able to receive and return to your application. And as we explained before, you’ll be able to make that application in text, video or audio and you can contact us if you need to make it in an alternative format.

I’m going to hand back to Verity now before the Q&A.

Amazing. Thank you very much, Ruth, and the whole team there. I’m aware there’s been a lot of information on screen. Please don’t worry if you haven’t absorbed all of that detail or been screenshotting merrily. It will all be available via our website in just a couple of days time. So we’ll make sure that all of that detail is there. In just a moment, we will be opening up the session to a Q&A.

So if you haven’t already had a chance to ask your question, please do share it with us. Again, you can press the Q&A button, which is usually located towards the bottom of your screen.

And we’ll be taking a few in the moment. There are more than 200 of us here in the room today, so it’s unlikely we’ll be able to cover everything. But please do rest assured the team and I will be reading every single question and will aim to include any that we don’t get to today in the Q&As, which will be on our website, which again, going live very, very soon.

In the meantime, you can keep an eye on us In a number of different ways. So the URL is there at the moment it will take you to a sign up for the newsletter page. So please do do that if you haven’t already. In a few days time, it will be live with all of the information and guidance around applications.

You can also keep an eye on us through a myriad of social channels. So we are available via Facebook, on Instagram, on X and on LinkedIn.

If you’re interested in tracking some of our events programs, we have a truncated version of our Inspiration Day programme, which is going to be online. So for those of you that haven’t been able to join us at the various cities around the UK in person, there’s a chance to catch the majority of that session in an online session on the 22nd of October between 10 and 12 p.m. there.

And you can come along if you’re particularly interested or have questions or want to test some thinking with us that are related to access and access requirements. We have an ask about access drop-in session on Wednesday the 30th of October between 11 and 12. So you can register for both of those.

I think what we will do now if we’re ready, is basically um

Come along to the Q&A session. So I’m going to stop sharing slides at this point and invite my colleagues, Ruth, Nina and Asha back to join me in the

In the main stage to see if there’s anything that we can particularly attend to from the Q&A session. So just take a moment for

everyone to come back into the room. Hello. Hello.

you might have to spotlight some individuals, I suspect. Otherwise, we’ll all take the questions, which is also fun. Ruth’s going to share the Q&A session, so I shall hand over to you, Ruth.

Yeah, there’s been a lively chat, but the producers are doing hopefully a great job of answering a lot of the questions that are coming through and people have been great at holding off until we talked about the eligibility. So there is one around access and diversity that would be great to sort of hit the ground running with, which is, you know, it’s a statement saying there’s a

like continued there’s continued lack of access to immersive arts for black practitioners

And says, hopefully this is an initiative that understand and remedy this part. So I wonder if the three of you would like to sort of chat through that.

Yeah, as we said in the presentation, like this is exactly the kind of issue that we’re trying to address and make sure that this program is very inclusive. As you mentioned, there will be a balancing across the portfolio as well to ensure that we do meet our targets.

Yeah, thank you. I don’t know if anyone has anything else No, I guess only just to say that from a sort of researcher point of view, we know that the arts sector

has challenges around representation and inclusion and that that tends to be compounded as soon as technology is involved. We know that the sort of figures aren’t good within the sector. And so we are taking a really

proactive approach to how we try and design this entire program, how we connect with people, how we listen and hold ourselves accountable to some pretty robust targets around

who takes part in this process and we’ll be asking ourselves some pretty parky questions if we run this first round and discover that those targets are falling short. So it’s a really cool concern for the program. Thank you for bringing it up.

Great. And there’s another one on research. So it says there’s a lot of research partners in your end, including universities. Can I check about the intellectual property of funded projects?

I hear your question. Yes. Leave that one with you verita. No, I understand the subtext, I think. So yeah, so the lead partner is a university, University West of England, and we’re working with the University of Bristol. So those are the two academic partners involved. We know that in some programs and collaborations where artists are invited to work with universities, the intellectual property can be quite difficult to establish.

Some sort of traditional university systems are sort of set up to assume that the IP, the intellectual property is either kind of shared or is owned by a university. I’m happy to share that that’s very much not the case for immersive arts. Our role is to kind of convene, facilitate and support this program.

we are quite clear with our university partners and also there’s kind of consensus all around that IP that is generated by funded artists is owned by and retained by those artists. So any work that you do is entirely your own property.

equally by submitting an application, no one has claimed your IP. So by kind of sharing that with us, we protect and create

a sort of a confidentiality around ideas that are shared so that whether they’re funded or not, they continue to be

considered as private information, confidential and retained by you. I hope that answers that question.

Great, thanks. to extend it a tiny bit further, I think for those, for example, where there are partnerships with multiple people applying

we do expect you to attend to your own questions of IP. So if there’s a question of collective IP or joint IP within your own project, that would be something that we would presume that that belongs to the applicants and that’s up to you to then take advice about whether you need IP protection within your consortium or within your team. We can offer advice based on our own experience, but broadly.

The intention there is that IP is entirely within the originator and not retained by the research organization.

Thanks, Faraday. There’s a couple of questions coming through on the application process. So people asking, do we need a team on board at application stage? And I think that’s slightly different for each strand as well, particularly for explore, you know, because it’s

working for people with little or no experience in immersive arts obviously we wouldn’t be expecting you to have a team on board at that stage. You may have collaborators

or people you would like to work with at this stage, you know, that you can identify or if not, you don’t have those resources, you’ll be supported by the producers nationally to make those connections and I suppose more broadly, the hope of the program is that we’ll be able to build that community and network that will be able to share those resources and be a connector for artists and

working in that space more longer term. on more of the bigger grants for experiment and expand, you would probably need an idea of who you’d be wanting to work with and have a team that you know an ideal team. I think at that stage, I don’t know, Verity, if you have anything to add to that at this point.

Yeah, I’d agree with that. And I think just to echo something that Lisa and Ruth have alluded to with the explore strand explore is very much not outcome and project oriented. As it suggests, it’s an explore space. So part of that will be about kind of developing your networks.

going and visiting people whose work you admire, going and sort of experiencing work directly. You can kind of put together the package that makes most sense for you in terms of developing your experience and expertise in immersive arts. It’s not about making a project or having a kind of a fully finished prototype.

Whereas for experiment and expand, they are much more kind of project bounded. So we would expect at that point that you have some sense of who that project team is.

Thank you. And some other things and eligibility. Some people are asking about whether they can apply if they have other AS funding. And yes, that’s fine. I think that’s fine to say, isn’t it? So while we don’t ask for match funding, we know that some of these projects may have funding from different

And from different places in order to make them happen.

Yeah, the only caveat there really is that it can’t be funding the same work. So it would need to be quite a clearly articulated additional

piece of work that this particular funding supports, but it’s absolutely fine if you have a kind of portfolio of funding put together around a particular program. There are no other funds that are kind of

ineligible, I think, in terms of how we put this together. We are kind of a separate entity as Immersive Arts. So it’s absolutely fine if you have

Yeah, if you have that kind of patchwork, but we know so many people need when it comes to those larger scale pieces

And then another question based on sort of organization size and the people are asking for clarification on just the number of people. Is it the organization or the number of people involved in the project? Could you speak to that very, Verity?

Yeah, sure. The language can be a bit confusing. We’re following the kind of the UK government descriptions of company size as a kind of a way to explain. So for any of those three strands, it’s possible to be an individual, a freelancer, self-employed. It’s also possible to be a collective or a small company.

The language that we’re using there that comes across a bit peculiarly, I think, is that you can be what’s called a micro entity, which is defined as up to 10 people in your collective or in your company. If you’re applying for the explore or the experiment, you can be up to the size of a micro entity.

For the expand strand, that goes up slightly and you can be described as a small company, which is up to 50 people within your organization. We’ve put those kind of caps there to explicitly explain that if you are a larger company than that, then you’re not eligible. So by the UK definition, if you’re a medium or a large company, you’re out of scope for this funding. So it’s maximums rather than minimums.

And we would expect you to have the kind of the size of team that best befits your proposal. I hope that helps.

And someone’s asked, are there opportunities for established practitioners to provide support to your applicants possibly as partners? People such as coaches, mentors or consultative in the immersive arts sector who can provide support to your cohort? And I think, yeah, we’d really welcome anyone who’s interested to get in touch with the producing team, you know, like I said, we’re trying to build

on the already amazing work that’s happening nationally and being, you know, hopefully connect artists and practitioners nationally.

Do you have anything else on that, Varity? So I just wanted to also touch on international collaboration because we’ve had quite a few questions on that before, whether people can work internationally or pay for working internationally with them.

funds. Are you happy to take that one as well, Ferrelly? Sorry, they’re all coming. Me again. Yeah, that’s fine. Yes. So a couple of things. I think we know that this is the immersive Arts is an international community. We’re really keen that the UK and those working in the UK are really connected to that. We’re not looking to kind of put borders around and kind of hold activity artificially in the UK. That said, it is a scheme that has been designed to support and develop

the UK immersive arts sector. So for that reason, applicants need to be based here in the UK, have a UK bank account. So we want to see the kind of the leadership coming from one of the four nations of the UK.

We are super open to people who already have or who have ambitions to build more international networks through this work. We know that there are kind of all sorts of international opportunities for co-production within the sector that we’re involved with and keen to take part in. So it is feasible to have an international element to your work.

When it comes to sort of spending a lot of the grant funding outside of the UK, that is going to be a bit of a case by case basis. I think if the majority of the funds were destined for partners outside of the UK, we would have questions or we might consider that to be a less favorable candidate than a similar candidate that has a kind of a stronger reason to be based here in the UK. So we are kind of looking to create some nuance there.

There will be some advice within the FAQs, the frequently asked questions that will sort of add a little bit of definition to that. But yeah, it is feasible to have international partnership and certainly we are looking to support those within the program to connect more with the international community.

But the intention is that this isn’t an artist led scheme. supporting those who are based here in the UK.

Great. And that’s another good question here about, are we intending that the project should

commercial release. I don’t know if anyone wants to take that one on Sorry, what did you say, Ruth?

And are the projects intended to have a commercial release as part of the funding program? I missed that. Sorry.

I’m sure you would like to take that or I can speak to Yeah, do you understand? Yeah, I was going to say, no, not necessarily. And especially for the explorer and experiment strands where explore, you’re not even necessarily meant to finish a project. It’s very, very early stage. And with experiment as well, you’re coming up with a prototype. So obviously there’s no expectation of a kind of commercial

model for that necessarily. But with expand, you know, it’s not necessarily to, again, also be at a finished commercial stage, but we do want you to be thinking about like distribution and things like that when you’re getting started.

doing anything. in the training and support. Sorry. Yeah, that’s great. And I think part of the support that, for example, so for those involved in the experiment

strands, there’s a development lab that crossover labs run, which is there partly to help you think about what those future possibilities for the work are whilst you’re at that prototype stage. So thinking about how you’ll connect with your audiences, how the decisions that you make early on impact your choices in terms of distribution and exhibition, for example, depending on the format. So the team are kind of here to lend some of that

experience about what that kind of landscape looks like, where the opportunities are and how that can guide the creative process.

But it’s more about that kind of learning and development process than kind of locking in a commercial model from day one.

I think we’ve covered most of the questions now they’ve come through in the chat. I don’t know if there’s based on some of the conversation, if you guys have anything

you want to share or where? Neat.

Yes, there’s anything else that anyone on the panel would like to add? Otherwise, I can wrap up. I think we’re good.

We’re looking forward to your applications. We really are. Yeah, very exciting. So yeah, I think that’s

20 for today. A massive thank you to the Immersive Arts team for putting this webinar together and indeed this whole program. Our thanks to the Arts and Humanities Research Council or AHRC, to Arts Council England, to the Arts Council of Wales, Creative Scotland and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland for your continued support.

And of course, a massive thank you to all of you for choosing to spend your time with us today. We know that time is precious and we hope there’s been something useful for you within this process. We look forward to connecting with you in lots of different ways in the coming months and years.

For now, that’s us. Thank you very much.