RCS Innovation Studio is a two-year pilot project which will facilitate new opportunities for knowledge exchange (KE) at the RCS. Through a series of workshops, panels, online discussions, and interdisciplinary collaborations and seed funds, Innovation Studio will support creative experimentation, skills development and collaboration. The project hopes to generate new practices and pave the way for a future Centre for Innovation at the Conservatoire.
Our multi-talented students, staff, and alumni have the innovation potential and industry expertise to support Scotland’s Covid recovery and transformation. Innovation Studio will provide focused support and funding to unlock interdisciplinary approaches to local, sectoral, national and global challenges. It will offer our creator community additional tools and provocations as they seek to expand their sphere of influence and impact.
Three Innovation Challenges, each lasting around 4 months are the heart of Innovation Studio and will drive the programming and seed funds available to the RCS community. These are thematically linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Green Recovery; Placemaking; and Health & Wellbeing.
Three cross-cutting themes – Digital Pivot, Future Skills, and Equality, Diversity & Inclusion – will inform and inflect all our work throughout those challenges.
The central Challenge Programme will be supported by two subsidiary programmes, a Crowdfunding Lab (Year 1) and a Creative Ideas Accelerator (Year 2).
Innovation Studio Pilot Aims:
• To unlock the innovation and knowledge exchange potential of our Conservatoire community and extend our reach and impact in the world;
• To support our RCS community to leverage new projects, partners and sources of funding;
• To facilitate the development of new strands of innovative research;
• To establish an innovation hub and support service co-created during the pilot with Conservatoire staff, students and alumni.;
• To facilitate the development of an active innovation network at RCS.
• To develop an imaginative Knowledge Exchange and Innovation Strategy that establishes this work as central to the Conservatoire’s future ambitions;
• To strengthen our role as the national conservatoire and civic university and set ambitious goals for our contribution to society in three key challenges: the Green Recovery; Place-Making & Sustainable Communities; and Health & Wellbeing.
Programme Outline:
The first of Innovation Studio’s 3 challenges, Green Recovery, will run from March – June 2022. Each of the 3 challenges will last approximately 4 months, and will involve a series of online events, including panels, workshops, funding opportunities, 1-2-1 mentoring sessions, and more. The specific dates for the 2nd and 3rd challenges will be announced later but will be in Autumn 2022 and Spring 2023.
Innovation Studio will launch on 8 March 2022. If you have any queries please email us at: innovationstudio@rcs.ac.uk
Innovation Studio funding will come from Scottish Funding Council through the University Innovation Fund (UIF) and through private donations and sponsors.
