The Festival of Creative Learning, now entering its second year, is a year-long series of events exploring creative learning and innovation at the University of Edinburgh. With this blog post we are delighted to announce the call for applications to participate in the curated week of the Festival, taking place from 19th – 23rd February 2018. This is a unique opportunity for you to embrace your creative spirit and find space for your imagination to flourish. We value openness, collaboration, creativity, mindfulness and experimentation so if you have an idea or project along these lines you should certainly apply. Our aims can be found on our website and we would encourage you to consider these alongside the Festival Application Guidelines when completing your application. The deadline for applications is 5pm on Monday 23rd October 2017.

Your event may involve performing, painting, crafting, writing, dyeing, baking, playing, escaping, debating, combining these, or something else entirely. It may be the celebration of something you have been planning for a while, or you might never have done anything like this before. All of these are equally valid as proposals and exciting for us to discover. For further inspiration, you can read about the events acknowledged at the Festival Awards in this earlier blog post.

Jennifer and I were appointed to the Projects and Engagement team at the Institute for Academic Development in December 2016 and the opportunity to jump straight in at the deep end to run the first Festival was a fantastic learning experience for us both! Since February we have dedicated a lot of time to reviewing all processes and feedback, aiding us to gain a greater understanding of how we can support all staffs and students realise their ideas as part of the Festival. You can read more about this process in an earlier blog post and watch the short Festival film from February 2017 available to view here.

If you are interested in running a Festival of Creative Learning style ‘Pop-up’ event outside of the curated week next February we would welcome your application for funding via the newly established IAD Action Fund. Small grant applications (up to £500) are assessed on a monthly basis throughout the year and successful recipients will receive access to all Festival branding and promotional support to help advertise their event.

We look forward to getting creative with you this coming year and to ensure you don’t miss out on any updates, please follow us on Twitter and Instagram @UoE_FCL and Facebook @FCLUoE. You can also join our mailing list (EASE log in required) or email us at creative.learning@ed.ac.uk.

Oct 6, 2017