Call for Partnership: Digital Heritage Collection – Resource Site Management and Promotion

Deadline for application: 11 Dec 2022

From British Council:

1. About the British Council

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We build connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and other countries through arts and culture, education and the English language. Last year we reached over 80 million people directly and 791 million people overall including online, broadcasts and publications. Founded in 1934 we are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body. We receive a 15 per cent core funding grant from the UK government.

2. Introduction

A British Council programme taking place in Colombia, Kenya and Viet Nam, Cultural Heritage for Inclusive Growth is an action research initiative exploring the use of cultural heritage for growth that benefits all levels of society. Cultural heritage in this context means many things, from the built environment through to cultural traditions such as music and language. Inclusive growth means working with and for all levels of society in order to reconcile the divide between economic growth, and rising poverty and inequality. In Viet Nam, the in-country Cultural Heritage for Inclusive Growth project – known as Heritage of Future Past – works with music and film heritage, in particular valuable aspects that are under-represented or at high risk of disappearing. For more information about Heritage of Future Past, please visit here

3. A Project Proposal

The British Council is developing Digital Heritage Collection, a small digital collection of heritage assets, both tangible and intangible, of diverse groups who have participated in Heritage of Future Past project over the past four years. These groups include various ethnic communities of the Central Highlands, such as the Bahnar, Ede, and Jrai, Chăm communities in the South Central Coast, and the communities of artists and audiences of southern performing arts, such as Cải lương, Hát bội, and other Diễn xướng Nam bộ forms, of the Mekong Delta, mainly in Hồ Chí Minh City.

The overall objective of this collection is to ensure that valuable living cultural heritage assets of diverse communities, particularly those at risk of disappearing, as well as the stories, communities, and people behind these heritage assets, are authentically recorded and creatively presented in digital forms which can be shared amongst these communities and beyond.

In 2021-2022, the first content for this collection with 17 heritage assets has been developed through nomination of heritage assets by local community members and groups in Gia Lai, Ninh Thuận, Kon Tum and Hồ Chí Minh City. For more information, please visit here.

By 2025, the Digital Heritage Collection is expected to be an inclusive platform in heritage sector for diverse groups of community members across Viet Nam with the following key purposes:

– Learning: presenting creatively the first content of 17 set of digital heritage assets, all associated interactive elements. Each set includes narratives, photographs, hand drawings, videos, and/or audio recording. These will be useful resources, enabling people who are either already working in the field of heritage or are interested in the sector to learn about living cultural heritage assets of diverse communities in Viet Nam, in particular valuable aspects that are under-represented or at high risk of disappearing. Click on the mapping for more information about these digitalized assets.

– Sharing: allowing community members and heritage practitioners to create and share any form of content about their cultural heritage, such as images, videos, text and audio. In other words, the platform can be built as to be wiki-like, featuring user-owned and user-created content.

– Growing: offering a wide range of activities including press meet, online talk, sharing session, storytelling workshop, and/or online competition to encourage wide promotion of valuable living cultural heritage assets to the public. These have the potential to be further developed and benefit a network of creative professionals, cultural heritage professionals, development professionals, heritage practitioners, community members in Viet Nam.

We are looking for a partner who is interested in developing a vision and a plan, and to implement this plan to best manage and promote this digital heritage collection over the course of the next three to five years.

Ideally, the partner would be a creative team with expertise and experience in the heritage sector, communications, and digital technologies. Our target is that the platform will be promoted and accessible widely, estimated to reach 80,000 digital audiences during the first year.

Please note that this partnership will involve extensive data management which will need to comply with the British Council’s Information Governance and Risk Management policy. It will also need to respect Intellectual Property terms and conditions that are applied to all existing content. Details of these will be discussed and reflected clearly in the partnership agreement in due course.

4. Timeline

We are looking to engage a suitable partner following this timeline:

– 16 Nov 2022: Call for Partnership
– 01 Dec 2022: Deadline for inquiries
– 11 Dec 2022: Deadline for responses
– 16 Dec 2022: Information to successful candidate
– 23 Dec 2022: Grant award start date
– Grant completion date: three to five years from the grant award start date

5. Grant Awards

We will offer a maximum grant of VND 720,000,000 (approximately GBP 25,000), inclusive of all applicable taxes, for the presentation of Digital Heritage Collection in digital platform, the management and promotion of this resource site over the next three-five years. We do not expect this grant amount to be used for development of new content for the site. However, we welcome candidates with a vision for further development of new content using funding from other sources. This amount should include technical costs such as domain, host, and maintenance of existing content over 3-5 years.

6. Award Criteria

Responses from potential partners will be reviewed and awarded based on an assessment of the presentation and communication plan for the resource site as proposed by potential partners, considering the following criteria:

– Benefits to the heritage sector in Viet Nam, particularly in terms of:

+ innovative ideas for the presentation, management and promotion of the site content;
+ extensive communications and reach to the key target audiences, who are creative professionals, cultural heritage professionals, development professionals, heritage practitioners, community members; and
+ attention to deliver benefits to community members, including women and girls, indigenous peoples, young people, from urban and rural communities

– Value for money – how the grant award will be used to achieve the intended purpose of best possible management and promotion of the resource site.

– Relevant expertise and experience of the potential partner.

7. Instructions for Responding

All interested candidates are invited to express their interest using the response form and budget plan template as below and send to [email protected] by 11:59 pm Viet Nam time, 11 December 2022.

8. Clarification Requests

All clarification requests should be submitted to [email protected] before 01 December 2022.

British Council 20 Thụy Khuê Tây Hồ, Hà Nội Tel: 84 (0)4 8436780 Fax: 84 (0)4 8434962 Website: http://www.britishcouncil.vn