News

The Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) is pleased to announce the outcome of the 1^st round of the Digit Innovation Fund.

We received 56 applications to the Digit Innovation Fund in June 2020, and 5 of those have received awards. The following are the list of Principal Investigators (PIs) and the title of their projects:

• Prof Gary Bosworth (Northumbria University), The Role of Co-working Spaces in Digital Rural Futures
• Dr Ayomikun Idowu (University of Sussex), Digital Entrepreneurship on Retail Platforms: A way to formalise employment for young people in the UK and Africa
• Dr Harry Pitts (University of Bristol), Co-working spaces and the urban ecosystem: the future of coworking post-Covid-19
• Dr David Robertshaw (University of Leeds), Digitalisation of employment services: a comparative case study of the UK and Australia
• Dr Francesca Sobande (Cardiff University), “Creators of Colour”, Digital Platforms, and Access to the Cultural and Creative Industries 

Digit is excited to be working with these fantastic teams on their innovative projects, which will start this September and conclude at the end of August 2021.

The 2^nd round of the Digit Innovation Fund will be announced in the spring of 2021.

Notes:

The Digit Innovation Fund is designed to support innovative research projects to a total value of £500,000 over the life of the Digit research centre (2020-2024). The Innovation Fund provides pump-prime support for new projects that complement the core Digit research programme. This was the first round, and there are likely to be 3 more, with intention to distribute funds equally across each call. Projects must be costed at 100% full economic cost (fEC) and will be funded at 80% fEC, according to UKRI guidelines. Funding in this round is available for projects which cost between £10,000 to £50,000 fEC and are maximum one year in length. We strongly encouraged smaller applications as we were very limited in the number of large applications that could be awarded. The fund is open to the research organisations across the UK, though project team members may be based elsewhere.