Background/Introduction

The Festival of Ideas will be a three-day event taking place in Hong Kong in January 2019, that will showcase the best of UK creativity and innovation. The festival’s theme will be: ‘An exploration of the Art and Science of Creativity.’ The Festival aims to demonstrate UK thought-leadership by exploring the importance of creativity and innovation - in the arts, sciences, social sciences and education - for the sustainability of developed urban societies.

The main venue will be at Tai Kwun in Central Hong Kong with satellite venues in the New Territories of Hong Kong. We aim to establish the Festival of Ideas as an annual event and a key feature of the Hong Kong cultural calendar. It will be an exciting alternative and counterpoint to other arts and cultural happenings in Hong Kong, and will position the UK as a crucible for creative, innovative and provocative ideas.

The Festival will provide the people of Hong Kong with a series of high quality interactive events and activities developed in partnership between UK-based and Hong Kong organisations that will provoke and inspire. The Festival is aimed at people from all walks of life, English speaking or not, and in particular the under 30s age group and the young-at-heart. The Festival will coincide with the celebration of the British Council 70th anniversary in Hong Kong.

For UK institutions, the Festival of Ideas provides an opportunity to engage with potential students and their parents beyond traditional recruitment fairs and information sessions. It provides an opportunity to develop new and innovative collaborations with Hong Kong partners, as well as the opportunity to showcase your institution’s expertise.

Expressions of Interest

We are looking for expressions of interest (EOIs) from UK HEIs willing to be creative partners in the Festival and co-create an activity and/or event with a local Hong Kong partner, and with input from the British Council. We are looking for events/activities which demonstrate how innovations and creative ideas contribute to a  sustainable world, especially from a cities perspective. Such events/activities may involve multiple disciplines or unusual pairings of disciplines. We are particularly interested in:

• Combinations of academic expertise to solve a particular problem
• How an existing idea, invention or application might be repurposed to solve a completely different problem
• Applications, inventions or solutions that have been the unintended but highly successful result of a research programme
• Examples of successful partnerships with other institutions or other organisations (i.e. corporate, government or NGO) to solve a problem
• Urban regeneration: universities as actors in urban regeneration (e.g. as cultural anchors, as technology hubs)

Whilst we are not looking for financial resourcing, we do expect that partner HEI’s be accountable for their own costs.

In the EOI, UK institutions are invited to provide thoughts on the following:

• Your Institution’s strength in relation to  the themes of the Festival and outline of your event/activity, how many people is it aimed at and how it would be delivered
• Examples of how you have successfully showcased institutional strengths in relevant areas in the UK or other markets, that could be adapted for the Festival
• Resources that you may wish to commit to the Festival in terms of expertise, key alumni, partners
• Objectives that you may wish to achieve in Hong Kong as a result of participating in the Festival