Due to the success of year one of the Creative Spark: Higher Education Enterprise Program, the UK’s British Council is to fund a further 12 international partnerships. Each partnership will receive a maximum of £40,000. 

Applications are open until 12 May 2019.

The UN has previously recognized the creative economy as being one of the most rapidly growing sectors of the world economy. Participants in the Creative Spark program help the next generation to develop new skills which may boost their employment prospects, as well as helping to develop the creative economy in their countries.  

What should applicants focus on?

The grant applications are expected to focus on:

• skills development for students and young creative entrepreneurs;
• how the applicant will support the new business and incubation;
• knowledge exchange. 

The maximum amount of funding will be £40,000 for one academic year per partnership (September 2019–June 2020). 

The partnership must be formed between at least one of the identified organizations in the UK and at least one organization in the program country. The final version of the application must be submitted by the UK partner. Partnerships may be one-to-one or involve a consortium (i.e. a small group of universities/institutions either from the UK or partner countries). 

Please see Application Guidelines for details.

Eligibility

UK organizations with partners from one of the Creative Spark countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan):

• university (or relevant institutions/institutes of the university)
• local/national foundations (with relevant focus and capacity to program targets)
• public bodies (governmental, semi-governmental organizations working for city/national administrations with relevant focus)
• non-governmental organizations
• creative hubs / clusters / innovation centers.

How to apply

British Council have produced a Word version of the online application form (please see the Creative Sparks page below) so applicants can draft and share the content easily with their partner(s). However, this is solely to allow them to collaborate. The final version must be submitted using the online form .

A list of the UK universities for potential partnership can be found at https://www.britishcouncil.ge/en/programmes/education/creative-spark/fund.

If you have any enquiries, please contact the Creative Spark program team or the local office before the application deadline, 12 May 2019.