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Digital Research Creativity Fund 2024-25 – Ideation and Experimentation

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DCCH Funding in Review
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This is the second post in a two-part series on last academic year’s Digital Research Creativity Fund applicants. This fund is open for applications for this academic year.

This post looks at how our funds supported experimentation with digital methods and creation of new research ideas. Our Digital Accelerator fund, in particular, looks to bring new ideas to the next stage of their development, through proof-of-concept or community engagement work. In addition, this fund supports the progression of ideas towards funding bids or commercialisation opportunities.

Dr Mel Evans (School of English) was supported to run workshops, based here at Leeds, engaging with the relationship between AI text generation and human creativity. The funding then led into a symposium, supported by our colleagues in the N8 Research Partnership, on the broader themes of the project. This project connected to an ongoing strand of Mel’s research, and she is developing the findings of these workshops into publications and into further research questions. She also delivered the outcomes of this project in a keynote at the Poetics and Linguistics Association annual conference in 2025. We are keen to continue to collaborate with Mel as this project enters its next stages!

Dr Shuyu Yang (School of Design) was funded to build critical connections with Chinese diaspora queer communities in the UK and ethically prepare for further research, alongside attending the Digital Methods Summer School at the University of Manchester. As this project develops, it will draw on digital mapping and storytelling methodologies, which the Summer School covered. Shuyu plans to take this project further into co-creation workshops with academics and community members, as well as applications for external funding, and we look forward to seeing how this project develops!

If you are a Leeds researcher in AHC and are interested in experimenting with digital methods and digital creativity, moving into the next stage of a research project, see our SharePoint [UoL login required] for more details.