South West Creative Technology Network
Transforming the way we live, work and play.
What is SWCTN?
Digital technologies are transforming the way we live, work and play; creating new challenges and offering exciting new opportunities. The South West Creative Technology Network (SWCTN) is a £6.5 million project to expand the use of creative technologies in the South West of England, in which the University of Plymouth is thrilled to be a partner.
The SWCTN brings together universities and industry partners whose joint research, innovation and expertise responds to industry needs across the health and manufacturing sectors and the Creative Industries. Led by UWE Bristol, the network is a partnership with the University of Plymouth, Falmouth University, Bath Spa University, Kaleider in Exeter and Watershed in Bristol.
The grant is part of Research England’s Connecting Capabilities Fund, which supports collaborative projects between universities and industry to encourage development of the commercialisation of products.
The Programme
The network offers three one-year funded programmes on the themes of Immersion, Automation and Data. Within each year the partnership will recruit a cohort of Fellows from academia, industry and new talent. Each cohort will be working independently through a period of deep-thinking, coming together regularly to share their ideas, followed by the opportunity to be involved in a prototyping phase, where we will invest £240k in eight prototypes.
Teams will have access to business development advice and support following the prototype phase, with a view to gaining further investment in order to get the prototype to its potential users or audiences.
Each Fellow will receive a £15k bursary to support time and research costs. Academics must be based at one of our University partners, others should have a connection to the South West.
- 3x 12 month cohorts
- 1 theme per cohort (Immersion, Automation, Data)
- £15k bursary for fellows
Paul Blackmore, Transference by Hellion Trace, Laura Kriefman
University of Plymouth Automation Fellows
24 new Automation Fellows have been announced, including University colleagues and a postgraduate researcher.
Polly Macpherson, Alejandro Veliz Reyes and Ed Braund have been named as Academic Fellows, with Birgitte Aga granted an Industry Fellowship and ResM student Rosie Brave named a New Talent Fellow. Each will receive £15,000 to investigate the theme of automation over one year.