The University of Ulster has launched a new stg£240,000 seed fund designed to stimulate growth and enhance competitiveness within the digital content sector.
The Honeypot seed fund is part of the Honeycomb – Creative Works initiative, a stg£3.58m skills and business development programme funded by the European Union’s INTERREG IVA Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body.
It is targeted at digital content creators across Northern Ireland, the six border counties of the Republic of Ireland, and western Scotland.
The seed funding is available to organisations and individuals that will play a key role in the development of the digital content sub-sector thorough animation, film and broadcasting, computer gaming, interactive media and music technologies.
Nurturing talent
“Northern Ireland is becoming renowned for innovation in the creative sectors and the university is committed to nurturing talent and playing a key role in helping the sector flourish through education and research,” said Fiona McElroy, creative enterprise manager in the University of Ulster’s Office of Innovation.
“The wider Honeycomb initiative couples skills training and market development to enhance the capability of the sector. It is helping to cement Northern Ireland’s reputation as a leader in the creative industries, allowing local companies to compete on a global scale and potentially create new jobs.
“The new Honeypot seed fund is all about further encouraging and enabling innovation through cross-regional co-operation and is open to anyone from an individual to larger SMEs.”
The three Honeypot seed fund categories include pre-proof-of-concept ideas with funding requirements of up to stg£2,500, later stage proof-of-concept projects with funding requirements of up to stg£5,000, and trans-disciplinary projects with funding requirements of up to stg£15,000.
Digital disrupter image via Shutterstock
