R&D MAP Creative Content Exchange

R&D MAP Creative Content Exchange: Early Adopters Fund

Supports United Kingdom cultural organisations through Creative Content Exchange with practical innovation trials and mentoring.

The R&D MAP Creative Content Exchange Early Adopters Fund is an AHRC grant supporting UK cultural organisations to overcome legal, technical, and operational barriers preventing them from onboarding their digital content to the Creative Content Exchange (CCE) platform, an AHRC R&D MAP infrastructure initiative. Funded costs include legal and rights clearance work, metadata enhancement and content structuring, pricing strategy and commercial modelling, platform integration improvements, time-bound staffing, project management, and indemnity insurance up to £1 million liability coverage.

Awards are up to £125,000 per organisation, funded at 100% of full economic cost — unusually, no co-funding contribution is required from the applicant. Projects must start by 1 September 2026 and all activity must complete by 30 April 2027, giving a maximum operational window of approximately nine months. The call opened 12 May 2026 and closed 30 June 2026, with outcomes targeted by end of July 2026. Eligible organisations include UK-based charities, NGOs, government departments, third sector organisations, social enterprises, and educational establishments, with large galleries, libraries, archives, and museums as the primary targets. International applicants are ineligible. Recipients of the separate Launch Partners Fund are also ineligible.

Successful applicants will use the funding to clear the internal readiness barriers that prevent large content-rich institutions from making their holdings commercially available via the CCE platform. With 100% FEC coverage and a nine-month delivery window, the fund is scoped for focused, concrete onboarding projects rather than open-ended research. Organisations need to demonstrate existing collections of licensable content and a credible plan for completing onboarding by the April 2027 deadline.