Scottish Arts Council announces shortlist of Scotland’s inspiring ideas

A site specific event combining the arts and extreme sports in Aberdeen, a 25ft high ‘Big Man’ walking through Scotland inspiring creativity among communities, and a performance by young Asian groups in Glasgow inspired by graphic novels and video games. These are just some of the exciting, innovative projects that have been shortlisted for funding from the Scottish Arts Council’s Inspire Fund.

Launched in February, the Inspire fund was developed to encourage the development of exciting, innovative projects to inspire and encourage the people of Scotland to take part in the arts, as part of the Scottish Arts Council’s commitment to increasing participation.

Thirteen applications totalling over £3.7m have been shortlisted for development funding based on their innovative ideas to provide more, wider and better engagement with the arts, and their potential to meet the aims and visions of Inspire which include: extending the reach and nature of engagement with the arts; ensuring quality artistic engagement; creating potential for new, creative cross sectoral partnerships; and demonstrating lasting outcomes to inspire arts, practice and people.

The projects selected will target a range of groups including children and young people, older people, minority ethnic groups, people with learning disabilities and communities in rural areas, which are identified as key target groups for encouraging and increasing participation.

Iain Munro, Co-director of Arts at the Scottish Arts Council and Chair of the Inspire panel said:

‘The Scottish Arts Council congratulates the innovative project proposals that have reached the shortlist, which are great examples of organisations that have embraced the key aims and values of Inspire and unleashed their creativity to produce high quality new ideas with the potential to inspire people and transform their lives.

‘We will now work closely with the shortlisted applicants to develop their project ideas, which we hope will provide even more opportunities to encourage the people of Scotland to participate in the arts and meet our vision of becoming creative, imaginative members of a confident, cultured nation.’

Minister for Europe, External Affairs and Culture, Linda Fabiani MSP said:

"I welcome the Scottish Arts Council's announcement about the Inspire Fund - and the phenomenal level of interest across Scotland in widening access to the arts and culture. I wish the shortlisted projects well as they work with the Scottish Arts Council to realise their ambitions."

The shortlisted applicants will each receive up to £10,000 development funding to progress their outline project idea into a fully developed project plan for consideration at Stage 2 of the application process.  While funding for shortlisted applications has been ringfenced, the process is still competitive and funding for projects will be dependent on a successful application at Stage 2, the result of which will be announced in February 2009.

The Inspire fund was designed to be flexible, innovative and responsive to the proposals and applications received and, as such, the Scottish Arts Council has been encouraged by the level of imagination shown in project ideas, while noting that many of the applicants did not demonstrate or articulate how their proposal would genuinely increase participation through ‘more, wider and better’ access to the arts.

In this context, the Scottish Arts Council proposes two further development strands for Inspire applications. The first strand will address those ideas that did not clearly articulate the barriers they sought to address, the communities they sought to reach, or how their approach was innovative in the way it proposed to increase participation to meet the standard required for an Inspire application.  A second strand will be the development of a further application round. Announcements on both strands are expected by 24 September 2008.

The shortlisted applicants are:

Notes to editors

The Scottish Arts Council is a Non- Departmental Public Body
(NDPB) which was established by Royal Charter in 1994 and is also a
Lottery distributor. The organisation serves the people of Scotland by
fostering arts of excellence through investment, development, research
and advocacy. Our corporate aims are: to support artists to fulfil
their creative and business potential; to increase participation in the
arts; and to place the arts, culture and creativity at the heart of
learning. We invest £60m each year, including £15 million of National
Lottery funding. For more information visit: www.scottisharts.org.uk

1. Inspire aims to increase participation in the arts by providing more, wider, better participation with the arts:
   • More - increasing the number and range of people enjoying and taking part in the arts, particularly arts activity for and by children and young people.
   • Wider - making the arts available to those who have had little opportunity to participate in the past; ensuring a fair geographic spread of activities; and supporting projects across artforms and technologies. 
   • Better - increasing further the quality of arts activities by supporting creative, ambitious projects.
     
2. The fund received 423 applications, with grant requests
   totalling almost £70 million. The total fund available was £8 million.
3. The deadline for Stage 2 applications is 27 October 2008.
4. Final decisions on project grants will be taken by the end of
   February 2009 and the majority of funded activity will be expected to
   have taken place by March 2010.
5. Further project details for the successful projects can be found at http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/1005675.aspx
6. For more information on Inspire visit:
   www.scottisharts.org.uk/inspire
   

Contact email(s)

media.office@scottisharts.org.uk

Issued by: Scottish Arts Council