Posted by s.hettrick on 9 May 2013 - 9:51am

The Technology Strategy Board and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) are to invest up to £1m in feasibility studies to stimulate the development of new multi-disciplinary approaches to software development.

This competition will fund projects that seek to create novel approaches to critical parts of the software development process, such as capturing user requirements and understanding user culture, and the translation of these into proposals for effective business methodologies suitable for small projects and budgets.

For more information, visit the competition website.

The aim is to reduce the amount of software that is produced that is unfit-for-purpose, because it is developed without a real understanding of the contexts that users are working in, or their cultures and behaviours, and so does not meet user requirements. The AHRC is particularly keen to encourage innovative engagement with research expertise from across the full spectrum of the arts and humanities.

The competition aims to enable software development teams to work with partners with complementary expertise from non-software disciplines (eg the arts, humanities and social sciences), to explore new and better ways of working, meaning that the value of significant annual investment in software development in the UK can be maximised.

Feasibility studies are open to companies of all sizes, and must be business-led and collaborative. Projects can attract up to 75% public funding for SME business partners (65% for larger organisations). Total project costs should not exceed £66,666. Projects are expected to last up to six months.

The competition opens on 28 May 2013. A briefing event for applicants will be held on the same day. The deadline for registration for the competition is noon on 3 July 2013, and the deadline for submission of applications is noon on 10 July 2013.

The TSB are also launching a call for Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs), lasting up to one year, that focus on bringing academic learning into software development business practice. The call will open in May 2013. Any organisations applying to both competitions must make sure that their proposals can stand alone and are not dependent on both applications being successful.