Current Programmes
The digital and broadcast commissioning opportunities and the free training and support that The Space provides are made possible with funding from a range of national and regional cultural development agencies and content commissioners.
Since we were set up in 2014, funders and commissioners we’ve worked with include: Arts Council England, Arts Council Wales, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, British Film Institute, BBC, British Council, Channel 4, Creative Scotland and Sky Arts.
We also collaborate with other skills and development agencies, further and higher education providers and cultural organisations to ensure those participating in our programmes benefit from the widest possible expertise.
Building Digital Capacity Programme
Funded by: Arts Council England
Arts Council England (ACE) was one of the founding funders of The Space when we launched in 2014 and it has funded us continuously since then.
We are currently in the fifth year of delivering a large-scale Building Digital Capacity Programme for ACE. This supports arts and cultural organisations in England to produce digital content and distribute it effectively online and via national and international broadcasters.
Programme activities include:
- Commissioning more than 70 digital projects from cultural organisations
- Providing free webinars, training events and, online resources
- Offering mentoring to senior leaders in cultural organisations to help develop their digital content strategies
- Creating roles for digital freelancers to provide the sector with required skills
- Supporting the sector with strategic challenges such as managing digital content rights or improving the accessibility of online content.
In November 2022, we were delighted to be invited by ACE to become one of its Investment Principles Support Organisations. This means we will now be funded from April 2023 to March 2026 to deliver further activities that extend the work of the Building Digital Capacity Programme. We will be announcing more details of this next phase of work shortly.
West Midlands Broadcast Development
Funders and partners: Arts Council England, BBC, Create Central, More4, ScreenSkills, Sky Arts
This 18-month programme, co-developed with regional and national partners, builds on the national focus on the West Midlands in 2022, resulting from the Birmingham Commonwealth Games and Coventry UK City of Culture.
Led by The Space, the programme is helping to develop new audio-visual production partnerships in the region. It will result in new cultural content being produced for UK broadcasters that increases the national profile for West Midland’s arts, culture, stories and talent and boosts the region’s production ecology.
For artists and creatives in the region who are new to the world of broadcast, our “Pitch Perfect” development strand provides them with professional support to develop new ideas that can be pitched to broadcast commissioners, helping to develop the next generation of broadcast capability.
Creative Digital Initiative, Scotland
Funder: Creative Scotland
Following the Covid-19 pandemic, this programme is designed to grow the skills, knowledge, confidence, and enthusiasm of creative businesses in Scotland in key areas of their digital activity and allow them to publish works that engage audiences online.
The programme has commissioned 10 Scottish organisations, that reflect the nation’s diversity, to create new digital works. As well as receiving production funding, each organisation is benefitting from expert support from The Space’s team and digital associates, spanning digital production, content distribution, audience development and online rights.
Coventry Libraries Service Digital Spaces
Funders and partners: Arts Council England, BBC, BFI, Coventry Libraries Service
This programme enables visitors to Coventry’s Central Library and local libraries in Bell Green, Foleshill and Tile Hill to experience Virtual Reality and immersive audio content. Users can choose from an extensive and regularly updated range of content from the BBC and other international producers as well as locally produced immersive short films.
The programme also offers local communities the opportunity to work with digital artists and digital tools to create and curate material about their own personal histories and cultural backgrounds. Finally, it provides training to librarians to deliver and market these new opportunities for public engagement. The overall aim is to help re-imagine what libraries might offer their communities in these digital spaces, that can educate, entertain and provide opportunities to build digital confidence and creativity.
