DDI boost for social change

Ten projects aimed at promoting social change through innovation have received funding from the Data-Driven Innovation initiative.

Nearly £200,000 of funding has been awarded to proposals ranging from using augmented reality to help animal conservation to understanding air quality using bike-mounted sensors.

Gemma Cassells, Lead Strategist for the Data-Driven Innovation initiative, said: “This Small Grants call builds on the success of previous DDI-supported open calls. It’s a great opportunity to support a diverse range of projects aiming to help deliver on the City Region Deal commitment to support ‘Social Change Through Innovation.”

The open call follows two similar calls from the DDI initiative; Covid19 regional recovery in 2020, and ‘Build back better’ in 2021. Both focused on supporting communities, services and businesses in the Edinburgh and South-East Scotland Region.

This year’s call launched to staff at the University of Edinburgh to support the application of data-driven innovation ideas to support a major theme the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal.
Projects are expected to run for approximately 12-16 weeks, starting from February 2023.

The Data-Driven Driven Innovation initiative is delivered jointly by the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University and is the biggest component of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal.

Read more.