Creative sector gains 1m in Government awards

The Government has awarded a share of 1m to 20 small creative UK businesses in its second Information Society Creativity Awards.

The awards, announced last week, are to help turn innovative ideas for digital products and applications into market winners.

Douglas Adams, chairman of the evaluation panel welcomes “Government support for small companies in the creative sector”.

The 20 accolades were split into Creative Concept Awards, to help companies to develop prototypes, and Innovative Product Development Awards, to help companies bring prototypes to market. The ISCAs are part of the Department of Trade and Industry’s Programme for Business.

The 20 winners include: Ransom Publishing in Oxfordshire for a CD-ROM and hybrid Web access called The History of Life; Barfield Group in Hertfordshire for a CD-ROM on working in Russia; The Mersey Television Company in Liverpool for the

CD-ROM, From Script to Screen; The 24-Hour Box Office by Dataculture in Milton Keynes; Research Exploitation CD-ROM to help UK inventions by Kenneth Mason Publications in Hampshire; The LightWorks StyleMaker by Lightwork Design in Sheffield; and 4ID, a digital image archiving system by Formance in London. All groups used in-house design.