Creative Industries Clusters Round 2 (Invite Only)

Creative Industries Clusters Round 2 (Invite Only)

The Creative Industries Clusters round 2 (invite only) was an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) grant opportunity delivered through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The official UKRI page now marks the opportunity Closed. Its published closing date was 22 July 2026 at 4:00 pm UK time, and the page states that applications could not be submitted after that time. This entry is therefore a historical reference to the closed 2026 commissioning round. The official page does not announce a later round or replacement deadline.

The programme invited teams to establish four new Creative Industries Clusters. It was designed for substantial, multi-partner, applied research and development programmes rather than small standalone projects. Each proposed cluster needed to work within an existing place-based creative industries ecosystem, respond to an industry-recognised challenge in a defined geography or sub-sector, and show how its work could create new products, services, or experiences with strong commercial potential.

Key details

Historical status and what it means

This page should not be read as an open call. The deadline in the front matter remains the real closing date of the completed round so that the archive records when the opportunity ended. historicalReference = true identifies that status for the site. There is no basis in the official opportunity page for replacing the closed date with a new one, and the programme did not accept continuous or rolling applications.

The UKRI page records the opportunity as closed while retaining the full guidance for the round. It also records that the page was last updated on 1 June 2026, when a Resources and cost justification section was added under How to apply. That update did not extend the application window. The page’s official URL remains the correct reference for the published scope, eligibility rules, financial model, application route, and assessment information.

What the programme was intended to fund

AHRC described the clusters as collaborations among universities, creative businesses, local and regional policymakers, private funders, and other relevant stakeholders. The purpose was to connect arts and humanities research with practical creative-industry needs and regional opportunity. A cluster could support research and development that led to new content, products, services, or experiences, while also improving the surrounding ecosystem’s skills, relationships, access to finance, and routes to market.

The round sought four new clusters that would fill gaps in the reach and coverage of earlier and existing clusters. The official focus included widening geographical coverage, extending the cluster model into sub-sectors or challenges not previously addressed, contributing to the UK’s Creative Industries Sector Plan, and responding to known challenges in skills and talent, equality, diversity and inclusion, business growth, and environmental sustainability.

The core objectives were broad but concrete. A successful cluster was expected to contribute to economic, social, and cultural benefits, including protecting existing jobs and creating new ones. It also needed to create an ecosystem for experimental creative content, products, services, and experiences; build long-term applied research partnerships; improve creative businesses’ access to knowledge and expertise; address place-based or sector issues through applied research; address equality and inclusion challenges; and work towards a positive environmental or sustainable impact.

Eligibility and partnership structure

The most important eligibility condition was the invitation route. An organisation could apply only if it had been invited after a successful outline application. This was not a fresh open call for an institution encountering the programme for the first time. The full application stage existed for invited teams that had already passed the outline process.

The lead had to be based at a UK research organisation eligible for AHRC funding. The opportunity also stated that organisations based overseas could be included where the relevant eligibility conditions were met, but only the lead research organisation could submit the application to UKRI. The host HEI had to work with at least one other HEI or an independent research organisation.

The partnership could not be nominal. Industry partners were expected to be integrated throughout the programme, from governance to delivery. The cluster needed to be led by industry need and grounded in a defined geography, sub-sector, or both. The guidance also expected collaboration with local or regional policymakers, private funders and investors, and sector or skills bodies where those relationships supported the programme.

The proposed work had to be interdisciplinary and combine research capabilities with industry need, with a strong presence from the arts and humanities. The team also needed a robust management and governance structure, senior buy-in from the HEI and industry partners, plans for risk and responsible research and innovation, and systems for monitoring and evaluating performance and impact.

Funding, devolved support, and partner contributions

The total fund was £27 million, with a maximum AHRC contribution of £6.75 million per application. AHRC funded 80% of full economic cost for standard costs. The guidance did not state one fixed permissible total project cost because the answer depended on the proportion of costs funded at 100% and 80% FEC.

At least 30% of the AHRC grant had to be devolved and funded at 100% FEC. This strand was intended to support R&D activity undertaken with creative-industry partners, including freelancers, micro-businesses, and SMEs. It was not contingency funding and could not be used for core business or general overhead costs. The host HEI remained responsible for ensuring that devolved awards followed the UK government subsidy control regime.

The programme also expected each cluster to attract additional funding from HEIs or partner organisations equal to at least 50% of the total AHRC contribution over the award period. This additional funding had to be specifically connected to the cluster’s objectives and supported by an appropriate audit trail or evidence. Acceptable sources included cash, capital, or in-kind contributions from application partners, and new funding secured for activity within the partnership. Funding committed before the award, unrelated institutional activity, and the HEI’s standard 20% contribution to FEC did not count.

The programme expected at least 30% of the overall additional-funding target to have been achieved by the mid-term review. Continuation of funding for the final two and a half years depended on reaching that point. Applicants therefore needed more than a general promise of support: they needed a coherent plan showing the scale, source, timing, and evidence for partner contributions and future funding attracted by the programme.

What a strong cluster plan needed to cover

A credible proposal had to begin with a clearly evidenced creative-industry ecosystem and a challenge that mattered to industry. The geography or sub-sector needed to be specific enough for reviewers to understand who was underserved, what problem the programme would address, and why a coordinated cluster was better than a set of unrelated project grants.

The R&D programme needed to show a path from research activity to business innovation and growth. Possible activities listed by AHRC included prototyping experiences with audiences and users, experimental studios or labs, new business-model or intellectual-property work, routes to finance and market, training and development, secondments, placements, shared facilities, events, showcases, and networking. These examples did not remove the need for a clear connection to the cluster’s defined challenge.

The plan also needed a flexible way to support smaller creative organisations and freelancers. That flexibility had to remain tied to R&D objectives. The proposal needed to explain how activities would be selected, governed, monitored, and evaluated, while allowing the programme to respond to market or technological change and to the results of earlier activity.

Skills and talent were part of the expected programme design. The official guidance identified secondments, business-management training, sector-specific workshops, fellowships, new course modules, mentoring, postgraduate training, placements, and paid internships as possible approaches. Applicants were also expected to explain how equality, diversity, and inclusion would be embedded across management, governance, and delivery, rather than handled as a separate statement with no effect on decisions.

Environmental sustainability was another required area. The application needed an environmental sustainability statement describing the programme’s overarching aim and approach. The approach could cover the environmental effects of the cluster’s own operations as well as the way its research and innovation activities might support more sustainable creative practice.

Application route used for the closed round

Applications were run through the new UKRI Funding Service. Je-S was not the submission system. Invited applicants received an email containing an application link on 27 May 2026. The project lead was responsible for completing the form, while team members and project partners were expected to contribute. Only the lead research organisation could make the submission to UKRI.

The official sequence was:

1. Confirm that the user was the project lead and start the invited application.
2. Sign in to, or create, a UKRI Funding Service account, select the organisation, verify the email address, and set a password.
3. Answer the questions in the Funding Service text boxes. Answers could be saved and completed later, or prepared offline and pasted back into the form. Documents had to be uploaded where the service requested them.
4. Check the completed application in read-only view before sending it to the research office.
5. Send the application to the research office for institutional and finance checks.
6. Make any required edits returned by the research office.
7. The research office submitted the checked application to UKRI.

AHRC had to receive the completed application by 22 July 2026 at 4:00 pm UK time. The official guidance stated that applications could not be submitted after that time and that a submitted application could not subsequently be changed. Internal research-office deadlines could be earlier, so invited teams needed to allow time for hosting, finance, eligibility, and compliance checks.

Required sections and evidence

The application included a plain-English summary with a 550-word limit, followed by core-team information and the main application questions. The core team used UKRI roles such as project lead, project co-lead, specialist, professional enabling staff, research and innovation associate, and technician. Industry experts could be listed as specialists, and public contributors could be included where relevant.

The main written sections covered vision, approach, applicant and team capability, ethics and responsible research and innovation, resources and cost justification, the host organisation’s support, project partners, data management and sharing, and Trusted Research and Innovation. The Approach response also needed to cover the EDI framework, sustainability statement and action plan, public engagement, skills and talent, monitoring, evaluation and learning, governance and partner management, and onboarding and readiness to deliver.

The support statement had to be approved by an appropriate institutional authority and include a significant person’s name, position, office or department, and an office address or web link. Partner records needed the organisation’s name and address, contact name and email, the contribution type, and its monetary value. Partner contributions could be direct, such as cash, equipment, resources, or seconded staff, or indirect and in-kind, such as access to facilities, datasets, or equipment.

The Resources and cost justification section required a clear explanation of the resources needed to deliver the programme. Reviewers were directed to pay particular attention to project staff, significant fieldwork or collaboration travel, equipment costing more than £25,000, exceptional consumables, facilities and infrastructure, and costs treated as exceptions. The point was not to provide an unexplained line-by-line budget, but to demonstrate that the proposed resources were comprehensive, appropriate, justified, and likely to produce the intended outcomes.

Assessment and later programme milestones

Full applications were assessed by an independent expert panel. Successful applicants were then invited to an interview with a panel of experts, after which funding recommendations were made. The official page expected interviews in October 2026 and aimed to issue funding outcomes by the end of November 2026. Those dates describe the planned post-submission process for the closed round; they are not a new application window.

If funded, clusters would be managed by AHRC and expected to work together as a cohort, sharing experience and opportunities. AHRC also required a mid-programme performance review and an independent evaluation focused on each cluster’s activities and needs. Continued funding depended on a successful review. Projects had to start by 1 February 2027 and run for five years.

The governance model was expected to include a steering board with senior HEI managers, senior creative-industry representatives, relevant local or regional organisations, sector bodies, and an AHRC representative. That board would oversee strategy and direction, offer constructive challenge, manage risks, and monitor delivery against key performance indicators. A proposal that left these responsibilities to an informal advisory group would not match the published expectations.

Practical archive note

The useful lesson from this round is that the opportunity combined a large AHRC award with demanding delivery conditions. It required an invited, research-led consortium; an industry-integrated governance model; a clearly defined place or sector challenge; a five-year R&D programme; devolved support for smaller creative organisations; additional partner funding with evidence; and explicit commitments on inclusion, sustainability, skills, evaluation, and responsible innovation.

Those conditions matter when comparing this historical page with any future AHRC or UKRI creative-industries call. A later programme should not be assumed to have the same amount, eligibility route, FEC treatment, devolved-funding percentage, or submission process. Applicants should follow the new official opportunity page if AHRC announces another round.

Official links

• Official opportunity page: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/creative-industries-clusters-round-2-invite-only/
• Funding opportunity contact: [email protected]
• UKRI Funding Service support: [email protected]