Professor Karen Cham, the university lead for Connected Futures Research and Enterprise , whose Digital Economy theme includes Digital Catapult Centre Brighton, 5G Brighton and DRIVA, said: “There is a bottleneck in the development of the digital economy: large organisations often cannot release value from their big data as it is costly, complex and time consuming and SMEs cannot innovate with big data as they cannot get access to it.” She added, DRIVA: Arts DRIVA, led by Donna Close, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Brighton, will benefit start-ups and existing SMEs in the creative, cultural, digital and information technology sectors.
DRIVA will run until January of 2021 and funding has been awarded from the Arts Council of England for a project running as part of and alongside DRIVA: Arts-DRIVA. This will enhance the DRIVA innovation activity to integrate the arts, cultural and creative industry sector and innovation processes to create new artworks and experiences for international industry and audiences, driven by data and demand.
The university will be working with Lighthouse and Wired Sussex on Arts DRIVA as well as with partners and creative practitioners across the Coast to Capital’s wider creative and cultural ecology.
The DRIVA project is receiving up to £500,000 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (and in London the intermediate body Greater London Authority) is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations.
The DRIVA Arts DRVA is also supported using public funding by Arts Council England.