Periodic Reporting for period 2 - STARTS Prize (STARTS Prize 2021-2023)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-07-01 al 2023-12-31
S+T+ARTS (Innovation at the Nexus of Science, Technology, and the Arts) is an initiative of the European Commission to foster alliances of technology and artistic practice that effectively implement European policymaking to nurture innovation and that showcase the role of artists and designers in these practises. The focusis on people and projects that contribute to mastering the social, ecological and economic challenges this continent faces. One element of this STARTS Initiative is a prestigious award.A yearly competition is held to single out for recognition innovative projects at the nexus of science, technology and the arts that have what it takes to make a significant impact on economic and social innovation. The two STARTS Prize winners each receive €20,000 and are prominently featured at Ars Electronica, BOZAR, Frankfurt Book Fair and other dissemination events around the world.
Main objectives of the STARTS Prize aim to
● Single out most forward looking collaboration & ICT innovation at the nexus of art, science and technology by linking the STARTS Prize to a world-renowned competition and designing strong & transparent selection mechanisms
● Raise awareness and showcase user driven applications and achievements in the field of ICT innovation
● Center both social and economic added value in innovation and bringing this closer to the general society
● Communicate the STARTS Initiative via the STARTS Prize to the general public
● Foster the growth and dynamic connectivity of STARTS to other international programs by community engagement and building a collaborative framework
● Introduce a new, additional STARTS Prize call priority in the novel creation, access & distribution of media content and development of new, qualitative approaches as a result of disrupting traditional media
● Build an evaluation framework to sensibly extract and map success indicators and impacts generated from the STARTS Prize winners
● Learn from this assessment for structured, sustainable recommendations for EU and national policy makers as well as the media industry
● Increase the dissemination activities in the media sector by involving actors such as Buchmesse and strong media partnerships
Main objectives of the STARTS Prize aim to
● Single out most forward looking collaboration & ICT innovation at the nexus of art, science and technology by linking the STARTS Prize to a world-renowned competition and designing strong & transparent selection mechanisms
● Raise awareness and showcase user driven applications and achievements in the field of ICT innovation
● Center both social and economic added value in innovation and bringing this closer to the general society
● Communicate the STARTS Initiative via the STARTS Prize to the general public
● Foster the growth and dynamic connectivity of STARTS to other international programs by community engagement and building a collaborative framework
● Introduce a new, additional STARTS Prize call priority in the novel creation, access & distribution of media content and development of new, qualitative approaches as a result of disrupting traditional media
● Build an evaluation framework to sensibly extract and map success indicators and impacts generated from the STARTS Prize winners
● Learn from this assessment for structured, sustainable recommendations for EU and national policy makers as well as the media industry
● Increase the dissemination activities in the media sector by involving actors such as Buchmesse and strong media partnerships
The STARTS Prize’s consortium contributed significantly towards the recognition of the STARTS Prize at the international level and its endurance, and development of the whole STARTS initiative and achieved impact through the following main outputs over the time of its implementation:
● STARTS Prize became one of the most recognizable awards that honors interdisciplinary and collaborative projects at the intersection of art, science and technology to foster new ways for innovation, as the impact assessment activity proved.
● In three years, the jury members singled out 90 most forward-looking projects at the nexus of art, science and technology and awarded 3 Grand Prizes in Innovative Collaboration that opens new pathways for innovation and 3 Grand Prize in Artistic Exploration for most convincing artworks that has a strong potential to influence or alter the use, deployment or perception of technology.
● STARTS Prize winning projects were successfully disseminated at the major annual events, as Ars Electronica Festival and Frankfurt Book Fair, and thus significantly contributed to the development of both: STARTS narrative became one of the major in building the discursive program for Ars Electronica Festival and settled as recognizable STARTS Day, importance and a special role of STARTS exhibition in the agenda; as reported, the involvement of STARTS agenda in ARTS+ track at Frankfurt Book Fair resulted in the significant rise of interest to this track of the fair’s agenda, the number of direct attendees of the STARTS booth and further programs tripled in the project timeframe.
● Along with it, STARTS Prize results were disseminated at 61 events worldwide in 12 countries, among those consortium members gave 23 presentations on the STARTS Prize,
● A grand total of approximately 625.358 people were reached with dissemination events at the consortium partner’s locations and around the world over 3 years.
● STARTS Prize winning projects became the base for the narration-based social media campaigns that proved to be a successful way to increase the involvement of specifically targeted audience.
● As the result of the communication activities the subscribers’ number increased for all the social media channels, from +21,3% for Facebook to +209,8% for Instagram and +259,3% for LinkedIn.
● The partnership with the PR agency Pickles allowed to move beyond the current active STARTS community, and reach a more mainstream audience, outside of the art and culture communities, and resulted in 30 pieces of coverage mentions with the estimated views amount to 135K views with a 31.9M audience.
● Development of the acceleration program as a tool for previously recognized project to foster their innovation endeavours, at the intersection of science, technology and the arts, its design is a balanced equilibrium between freedom to innovate, support provided with mentorship sessions and monetary contribution, and required outputs as testing the projects in different environments, pitching ideas and sharing their experiences.
● Within the policy strand, the relevant impacts of ICT and media innovation through arts were identifies through analysis of the selected projects and communication at the policy events, the policy recommendations were developed and provided an overview to EU stakeholders and national policy makers.
● STARTS Prize became one of the most recognizable awards that honors interdisciplinary and collaborative projects at the intersection of art, science and technology to foster new ways for innovation, as the impact assessment activity proved.
● In three years, the jury members singled out 90 most forward-looking projects at the nexus of art, science and technology and awarded 3 Grand Prizes in Innovative Collaboration that opens new pathways for innovation and 3 Grand Prize in Artistic Exploration for most convincing artworks that has a strong potential to influence or alter the use, deployment or perception of technology.
● STARTS Prize winning projects were successfully disseminated at the major annual events, as Ars Electronica Festival and Frankfurt Book Fair, and thus significantly contributed to the development of both: STARTS narrative became one of the major in building the discursive program for Ars Electronica Festival and settled as recognizable STARTS Day, importance and a special role of STARTS exhibition in the agenda; as reported, the involvement of STARTS agenda in ARTS+ track at Frankfurt Book Fair resulted in the significant rise of interest to this track of the fair’s agenda, the number of direct attendees of the STARTS booth and further programs tripled in the project timeframe.
● Along with it, STARTS Prize results were disseminated at 61 events worldwide in 12 countries, among those consortium members gave 23 presentations on the STARTS Prize,
● A grand total of approximately 625.358 people were reached with dissemination events at the consortium partner’s locations and around the world over 3 years.
● STARTS Prize winning projects became the base for the narration-based social media campaigns that proved to be a successful way to increase the involvement of specifically targeted audience.
● As the result of the communication activities the subscribers’ number increased for all the social media channels, from +21,3% for Facebook to +209,8% for Instagram and +259,3% for LinkedIn.
● The partnership with the PR agency Pickles allowed to move beyond the current active STARTS community, and reach a more mainstream audience, outside of the art and culture communities, and resulted in 30 pieces of coverage mentions with the estimated views amount to 135K views with a 31.9M audience.
● Development of the acceleration program as a tool for previously recognized project to foster their innovation endeavours, at the intersection of science, technology and the arts, its design is a balanced equilibrium between freedom to innovate, support provided with mentorship sessions and monetary contribution, and required outputs as testing the projects in different environments, pitching ideas and sharing their experiences.
● Within the policy strand, the relevant impacts of ICT and media innovation through arts were identifies through analysis of the selected projects and communication at the policy events, the policy recommendations were developed and provided an overview to EU stakeholders and national policy makers.
STARTS limn a nexus at which insightful observers have identified extraordinarily high potential for innovation. And innovation is precisely what’s called for if we’re to master the social, ecological and economic challenges that Europe will be facing in the near future. With the STARTS Prize initiative, Europe is able to focus on projects and people that can make meaningful contributions to this effort. Here, art is assigned the role of catalyst that propagates scientific and technological knowledge and skills among the general public and triggers innovative processes. Accordingly, the STARTS Prize is emphasizing, on the one hand, artistic works that influence or change the way we look at innovation, and, on the other hand, very promising forms of collaboration between the private sector and the world of art and culture.
The main objectives of the STARTS Prize are contribution to a paradigm shift in innovation, awareness building, integration, transdisciplinarity and contextualization.
Key Achievements:
1. The Prize itself as key driver for quality of projects submitted for exposure.
2. The high quality of selected projects linked also to presentation in dissemination activities, increase recognition of prize itself, manifested through events.
3. Impact areas defined for communication and dissemination activities in the form of coherent storylines through the Editorial Board
4. Apart from main STARTS priorities, the projects are addressing further important European priorities with the scope of chosen projects active in areas pertaining to the areas of green and digital transformation. Further indirect connections are generated with the Green Deal as well as the New European Bauhaus.
5. Connecting interdisciplinary communities beyond STARTS.
6. Fostering collaboration and communication with other STARTS consortia, creating mutual beneficial effects.
The main objectives of the STARTS Prize are contribution to a paradigm shift in innovation, awareness building, integration, transdisciplinarity and contextualization.
Key Achievements:
1. The Prize itself as key driver for quality of projects submitted for exposure.
2. The high quality of selected projects linked also to presentation in dissemination activities, increase recognition of prize itself, manifested through events.
3. Impact areas defined for communication and dissemination activities in the form of coherent storylines through the Editorial Board
4. Apart from main STARTS priorities, the projects are addressing further important European priorities with the scope of chosen projects active in areas pertaining to the areas of green and digital transformation. Further indirect connections are generated with the Green Deal as well as the New European Bauhaus.
5. Connecting interdisciplinary communities beyond STARTS.
6. Fostering collaboration and communication with other STARTS consortia, creating mutual beneficial effects.