The programme has been developed in response to an underdeveloped creative sector and a demand for entrepreneurship training in the programme countries, supporting wealth and job creation.
Creative Spark has three key elements:
1) Development of the funded partnerships between universities and creative institutions in the UK and those in programme countries through Creative Spark Partnership Fund to support:
- Skills development for students and young creative entrepreneurs
- Supporting new business activation and incubation
- Knowledge exchange
2) Delivering enterprise training packages to students, graduates and young entrepreneurs, ranging from pitching ideas and starting a business, to protecting intellectual property and securing financial support – developed through a an online enterprise pitch competition open to 100,000s of students, graduates and young entrepreneurs across the programme countries with UK based professional development courses and seed funding as prizes.
3) Delivering an English Learning Programme with a range of new digital language learning content. This includes online learning packs on the English Channel platform, online courses, new Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) focused on English for entrepreneurship and English Clubs.
In 2018-19, 38 partnership projects were awarded a maximum of £50,000 funding for new creative economy partnerships between the UK and the seven programme countries which has led to 500 new business ideas under development. In 2019-20, the programme will fund 12 new international partnerships – bringing the grand total to 50 projects.
For further enquiries, contact creative.spark@britishcouncil.org
For more information on the Creative Spark Programme, click here