APPLICATIONS FOR 2023 - NOW CLOSED

Deadline: Friday 16 June 2023

Are you a University of Cambridge researcher looking for a creative adventure to boost your research, engage with new audiences or to get a fresh perspective on your work? Or a freelance filmmaker, illustrator or animator interested in working with and getting inspired by research? Search no more as the University of Cambridge Public Engagement with Research Team have a series of creative projects open for applications with new categories introduced each year.

Scope of the projects

Creative Encounters provides opportunities and funding to enable researchers to work with creative professionals and students through a variety of media including film, animation, photography, theater, sculpture, performance, graphic design, illustration, and poetry to produce creative responses to their research.

The combined skills of researchers and creative professionals bring research at Cambridge to life. Through these creative pieces, we hope to inspire and continue to reach wider audiences, to create opportunities for conversations and questions where we can each share our knowledge and understanding.

One of the long-term outcomes of the project has been continued collaboration between some of the researchers and filmmakers, films and animations have been screened in film festivals and researchers have used their outputs to reach new audiences including schools, charities, policy makers and patient groups.

This year we will be accepting applications for the following three categories:

  • Cambridge Creative SHORTS
  • Cambridge Creative WORDS
  • Cambridge Creative PARTNERSHIPS

Categories

Cambridge Creative SHORTS

Cambridge SHORTS supports researchers and filmmakers to work together to make professional quality short films and animations that reach out to new audiences and tell the story of research. Short films and animations are presented online and during the Cambridge Festivals to spark discussions and increase the visibility of individual research.

Cambridge Creative Words

Have you ever wanted to discover how poetry can bring a new perspective to your research? How your words can engage new audiences with the subject you are passionate about? WORDS give researchers the opportunity to explore the wide worlds of poetry together with a poetry and public engagement professional.

Selected researchers work with a professional poet to explore different formats and to bring out the poetry that lies within their research for performance and publication.

Cambridge Creative Partnerships

In previous years as part of this category researchers have collaborated with media students from a local further educational college. We are very happy to be able to continue last years successful partnerships with Cambridge School of Visual and Performing Arts. As part of this category you will be paired with creative students and staff to produce a unique piece based on your research. The creative outputs may be anything ranging from films, video games, animations, performance pieces, zine, digital media, performance and podcasts amongst others.

Previous outputs of Cambridge Creative Encounters

For an overview of project outputs from previous years:

Cambridge Creative Encounters 2022 Documentary

Category

Year

Shorts
(Short film and animations)

2022

2021

2020

2016

VERY Short
(short animations, GIFs)

 

 

2020

 

Partnerships (Range of visual outputs)

2022

2021

2020

 

Words (Creative writing and poetry)

2022

2021

 

 

Behind the Curtains
(Theater and performance)

 

2021

2020

 

Snapshots (Photography)

2022

2021

 

 

Application deadline

Researchers and creative professionals can submit their application until 5pm, 16 June 2023.

Application forms and further guidance for 2023

Guidance for researchers and creatives

For researchers

  • Application form for researchers (PDF)

  • Application form for researchers (Online)

For creatives

If you have any questions regarding a potential application please contact Selen Etingu, selen.etingu@admin.cam.ac.uk