Celebrating Research That Makes a Difference: Impact Festival 2025 Highlights

So  Creative  Informatics  was  a  5.5  year ish  programme  supported  by the  Arts  Research  Council, the  Data  Driven  Innovation  Programme, the  Scottish  Funding  Council, and  later  DCMS  to  support the  creative  industries  to engage  with  data  and  data  driven  innovation, and  then  also  with  AI  as  well, recognising  lots  of  opportunities  there  and lots  of  brilliant  ideas coming  from  that  sector, but  they  weren't  really  able  or confident  to  access  the  kind  of  funding and  support  that  was  available  to  other  kinds of  innovators  elsewhere  in  the  economy. So  for  me,  ensuring  that we  were  being  inclusive in  the  way  that  we  worked, but  also  the  people  we  were  supporting  were being  inclusive  was  really,  really  important. That's  partly  because  we work  in  the  data  space where  kind  of  the  ethics of  that  are  really  important, but  also  because  the  kind of  people  who  usually benefit  from innovation  funding  look  very  similar. But  the  whole  way  through  the  programme, that  was  really  important  to  us, and  we  did  that  ethics  process  with our  startups  to  really  help them  understand  those  issues  too, including  the  accessibility  of what  they  do  and  who  their  work  was  for. So  we  had  a  78.5  million pound  GVA  put  impact  on  the  region. That's  with  449  new  jobs,  which  is  huge. But  actually,  when  I'm  out and  about  in  Edinburgh, it's  seeing  those  creative  individuals  and creative  businesses  who  are selling  products they  develop  with  our  support, who  are  developing  their  practise because  of  skills  and confidence  they  gained  from working  with  us  and  with  each  other. That  is  hugely  meaningful and  impactful  for  me  and  seeing creators  really  go  for funding  opportunities  and things  like  tech  sccala to  develop  their  business, that  makes  me  enormously  proud. It  really  feels  like  we did  the  thing  we  wanted  to  do. 

The  steering  group  is a  partnership  that  brings  together a  collection  of  like minded  practitioners involved  in  different  sectors, including  the  youth  work  sector, policy  areas, and  national  organisations, including  the  Scottish  government. We  have  a  common  goal, which  is  to  build  an  evidence  space and  influence the  practise  sector  through  data, ultimately,  to  improve  the  lives  and lifestyles  of  young  people  in  Scotland. Our  work  has  been driven  by  the  needs  of  the  practise  sector. We  initially  started  with  a  consultation around  ten  years  ago  where  we  asked youth  work  practitioners  and other  stakeholders  what  they saw  as the  research  priorities  for  youth  work. And  we've  recently  repeated  that  exercise, and  we  are  working  on  that  agenda  now. I  think  it's  important  to  have good  communication  and  to  have representation  from  the  key  stakeholders that  are  engaged  with  the  youth  work  sector and  to  play  to  everyone's strengths  of  what  we've tried  to  do  over  the  years is  engage  with  the  sector, involve  them  as  participants  in research  and  partners  in  research. And  it's  important  that  we  continue  to  do that  and  build  the  research  culture within  the  youth  work  sector  in  Scotland.