Running concurrently with the Heritage Enterprise and Education Hub, the National Lottery Heritage Funded Heritage Impact Accelerator offered a 10-month incubator programme to two cohorts between 2021 and 2023. It aimed to build the capacity of 12 diverse local practitioners and/or organisations to deliver enhanced community heritage projects, develop new cultural and cross-sector partnerships and increase levels of contributed and earned income.

Inspired by the tech start-up model, the programme immersed participants in a university hothouse for entrepreneurial and interdisciplinary skills development. It accelerated and pushed practitioners to develop thriving community heritage projects and enterprises.

Heritage Impact Accelerator Offer

• 2 x 10-months of training and development for two participant cohorts across two years
• 3-phase programme designed to accelerate business models
• £4,000 stipend for participants that supported living, training and project expenses.
• Collaborative hothouse for ideas development through access to UoB archives and collections, published research and e-journals
• Co-working sessions with community partners, students/graduates and academics relevant to their heritage, education and business specialisms
• Opportunities to develop and submit competitive project grants, including to the National Lottery Heritage Fund

Programme Delivery Phases

Each Heritage Impact Accelerator cohort was guided across three phases:

Phase 1 – Training & Development

Intensive training and co-working programme delivered in response to a participant survey undertaken upon the successful recruitment of each cohort, which realises areas for development.

Participants accessed university and partner knowledge, archives and publications, as well research and teaching expertise that support development.

The end of this phase featured Accelerator Open Week (delivered online or physically dependent on COVID-19), which enabled participants to test and share new ideas and work-in-progress with industry, community and cultural sector/cross-sector professionals.

Phase 2 - Project & Partnership Enhancement

Based on Accelerator Open Week, participants scaled up ideas that had been founded in Phase 1. They connected to new local partners and delivered a robust pilot heritage outreach programme. Participants received support from the Culture and Community Engagement Team, LCEP projects team and the Collaborative Projects Team to consider robust methods of project management, delivery and evaluation.

Dependant on COVID-19 guidance, projects were delivered either physically or through the digital and remote methods supported by the Collaborative Projects Team as part of their UniConnect work.

Phase 3 - Bid Writing & Next Steps Support

Participants, in considering the impact of Phase 2 delivery, developed robust COVID-19 recovery plans, business plans, partnerships and models that further realised a step-change in strategic considerations, delivery and impact.

Finally, in considering next and future steps, participants were supported to develop exceptional funding applications that realised these new business, outreach and partnerships models, as well as ambitions for the future.