Dr Emanuela Vai, Head of Research (Humanities) and Senior Research Fellow, has received an award from Oxford’s Strategic Innovation Fund to accelerate the ‘Digital Bate Collection’ project.

Dr Vai is Keeper of the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments and is collaborating with David De Roure, Professor of e-Research in the Department of Engineering Science. Their project represents a stimulating opportunity to apply digital humanities tools to advance research on musical instruments. It will foster interdisciplinary and methodologically-rich approaches to object preservation and expand opportunities amongst heritage professionals, researchers, the creative industries and the public alike to interact with historical musical instruments within GLAM environments.

Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) investments focus on identifying and developing high-impact, flexible and highly innovative or creative project concepts. It enhances the chances of excellent research having far-reaching impact, typically through attracting substantial external funding, or significantly advancing research translation and commercialisation. The fund is worth up to a maximum of £2.5 million per year and is funded from annual surplus returns from the University’s research commercialisation activities.