Going for growth – and helping the Gaelic language to develop

Published on Thursday 10 April 2008 22:12

TODAY, a new centre for cultural and creative industries opens at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college on Skye. With the language at its heart, what does Fàs (Gaelic for "growth") mean for today and why is a commercial company like Cànan moving in?

Fs is a visionary statement for Gaelic, creativity and enterprise. The constituents – among them learning providers, artists, musicians, software developers, PhD students, child-care providers and TV companies – have been afforded a collective opportunity to drive these fields forward in a way not yet seen elsewhere.

And what views! The fusion between building, environment and vision is unparalleled. The reason for clustering such diverse areas was agreed long before the building was conceived and, of course, we planned to move in long before we saw the plans… really!

Sabhal Mr's ethos has always been that for Gaelic to develop – for the campus to make sense – it needs to be more than a Gaelic-medium college. Instead, it must deliver on the four pillars of learning, research, enterprise and culture. Learning is already well provided for, and the remaining corner-stones can now be strengthened through Fs.

Centred on the language, Fs will help to implement the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act; contribute to the upcoming Gaelic digital service; develop Gaelic learner and speaker resources; undertake essential research to underpin language planning; and work to reinstate the importance of the visual arts within Gaelic culture.

Most crucially, it offers exciting and diverse work opportunities in Skye and around Gaelic. Across those four pillars, there's a clear opportunity to prove that Gaelic can be innovative and contemporary – and have major economic potential.

By merging technology and creativity, there is significant applied-research potential. In 2005, a Cnan/ Napier University partnership was a UK finalist in the Knowledge Transfer Partnership awards, mainly ahead of engineering and biotechnology partnerships. That project developed systems for online language learning, starting with Gaelic, but customisable for any language.

Commercial and social enterprise within Fs will be supported by an entrepreneur-in-residence scheme, with leading entrepreneurs already stating their willingness to participate. This complements the college's writer, musician and artist in-residence programmes.

The government's economic strategy prioritises the creative industries, tourism and education – warmed by the Fs biomass generator, those priorities will find a comfortable home in the building.

So is Fs just an artificial cluster of groups married off together? Not a bit of it.

Those who drove this exciting development are to be congratulated for their vision and determination. Those of us who'll work there, in social, cultural and commercial enterprise, can now realise our own potential and add significant value to Gaelic, educational, creative and economic developments – locally, nationally and internationally.