The JISC e-Content Programme currently has two funding calls: JISC Grant Funding 11/10: eContent Programme and JISC Grant Funding 16/10: Rapid Digitisation, both with submission deadline on December 10, 2010 – a deadline that is fast approaching.

The 11/10 eContent Programme call is particularly interesting from a community collection point of view. It has two strands:

• A: Enriching via Collaboration – Using collaboration to cluster, repackage and represent existing digital content
  For example (from the Call for proposals):
  – “taking multiple existing resources and creating one single product with a more marketable theme”
  – “exposing content via new web platforms and devices, or improving the quality and relevance of an existing resource”
  – “exposing the content from a museum, society or business to HE audiences”
• B: Developing Community Content – To develop new content and communities for educational and social purposes.
  From the Call for proposals: “JISC would now like to take forward a further phase of funding to develop its understanding of the potential of this area, broaden the types of content and collections that might be developed in this way, and to spread this learning through the university and BCE community within the UK and beyond“

JISC are proposing to fund 4-5 projects for Strand A, 5-6 for Strand B, and 5-7 for Rapid Digitisation, each with a maximum of £50-£100,000 per project. The successful eContent projects will start by March 1 2011 and be completed no later than 30 September 2011. The Rapid Digitisation projects are even shorter, meant to run for up to five months between March and July 2011.

The Calls for proposals outline in more detail what is expected by the projects that will be funded and also provide information and advice on how the proposal should be structured and composed. Those planning to apply for the eContent funding are advised to look at Chris Batt’s study ‘Digitisation, Curation and Two-Way Engagement’ and also familiarise themselves with JISC’s Business and Community Engagement (BCE) Programme. It is also suggested that “contact with the RunCoCo project and the NCCPE is to be welcomed”.

To give prospective bidders more information about the calls, and to provide an opportunity for networking, JISC hosted a Digital Content Partnership  event on October 28th. The event, which was over-subscribed, saw some 120 participants gather to learn about the calls, meet prospective partners and listen to interesting talks. Notes and presentations from the event are being made available by the JISC Digitisation Programme. To facilitate current and future partnerships and collaboration, a list of participants was distributed at the event, with information about people’s project plans and/or what kind of partners they were looking for.

It is likely that the two calls will receive a large number of submissions (someone mentioned that about 100 would not be unexpected). Although it will be the case that not all good proposals will be funded within the scope of this call, it is nevertheless positive to see that there is such a great interest in the area and that so many good ideas exist. We are hoping that the future will see many of them realised, perhaps through new partnerships identified through the list of participants from the JISC event or through some other channel.