UCAM SHAPE Hub

(October 2025 to September 2026)

We are delighted to announce a 12-month programme which will support AHSS researchers to explore creative industry collaborations and develop digital technology applications and opportunities for their work. During these sessions we will bring together researchers at different stages in this process. Successful applicants will receive support to devise new projects, build links with industry and support innovative public engagement, knowledge exchange and innovation pathways across the arts, humanities and social sciences.

The UCAM *SHAPE Hub programme aims to excite researchers about the possibilities of using new tools and collaborative creative practices, and inspire them to integrate these into public engagement, knowledge exchange, and innovation pathways to enhance their research impact. 

The School of Arts and Humanities and the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences would like to acknowledge funding received from the University's Strategic Partnership Office to support this new initiative.

The funding is now from HEIF.

Contact us via: AHimpact@admin.cam.ac.uk

*SHAPE is a collective name for the social sciences, humanities and the arts, introduced by the British Academy in 2020. See here.

Translating Research into Creative Industry: Expressions of Interest

Are you looking for novel ways to increase the public impact of your research?

Join our workshop with art/tech organisation Collusion to hear examples of ways in which you can collaborate with artists to boost public engagement by using creative research methodologies that involve new and emerging digital technologies.

The workshop will take place on 9 December 2025.

Expressions of interest from researchers in the arts, humanities and social sciences are invited.

The closing date is 28 November 2025.

The SHAPE Hub will run a series of activities designed to invite “entry-level” engagement between Collusion and the research community, giving researchers practical introductory support, in-depth case studies, time, space and resource and access to advice, to experiment with collaborative approaches involving the creative industries. These sessions will raise researchers' skills and confidence in approaching future creative partners and developing meaningful and impactful projects.

The programme aims to:

• create a community of AHSS researchers open to or already experimenting in engaging with creative industries tools and practices;
• The programme will inform our work in developing the AHSS KE ecosystem by increasing our understanding of existing barriers and opportunities to researcher-creative industry collaboration.
• AHSS Schools will begin to map the unique capacities, strengths and thematic interests of the research community and to differentiate the value of Cambridge AHSS’s offering for future creative industry partners.
• The work can feed into larger ambitions to develop more structural links with valued creative industry partners by identifying, encouraging and convening an “open-to-collaboration” research community. The success of interactions between AHSS researchers and larger industry partners will rely on our ability to describe our strengths and to tell compelling stories about emerging high-impact projects led from AHSS research.