Following a competitive tendering process, the Engine Room at the University of the Arts London has been chosen to evaluate the Wellcome Trust’s Sciart funding programme. Launched in 1996 and wound up in 2006, Sciart was a groundbreaking 10-year scheme that aimed, originally, ‘to fund visual arts projects which involved an artist and a scientist in collaboration to research, develop and produce work which explored contemporary biological and medical science’. Over ten years, Sciart supported 124 projects with £3m of funding.

The scheme passed through three distinct phases, the middle phase of which involved a consortium of influential (mainly arts-focussed) funding partners. This broadened the scope of the scheme to cover all science disciplines. Consortium partners contributed funds and contributed to the decision-making process. In 2002, the consortium was disbanded. Some of the partners, NESTA, the Arts Council, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation continued to fund arts and science interdisciplinary practice through their own funding programmes.

In 2003, Sciart became solely WT funded once more, the scope of the scheme was broadened to incorporate the criteria of another WT funding scheme, Science on Stage and Screen, which was focussed on film and the performing arts. The scheme now supported projects across all art forms.

The aims of Sciart were to:

• Stimulate interest and excitement in biomedical science amongst adults;
• Foster interdisciplinary and collaborative creative practice in the arts and science;
• Create a critical mass of artists looking at biomedical science and build capacity in this field.

The evaluation began in October 2007. A seminar to present draft findings will be held in June 2008 and a full report of the research findings will be concluded by July 2008.

Please click here to read more information about the SciArt project