Echoing last year’s creation of the Canada Media Fund, Ottawa is ditching its Partnerships and Gateway funds to combine them into one financing body, the $37.5 million Canada Interactive Fund. The fund, to be administered by the Department of Canadian Heritage, will be rolled out in 2010/11.

‘While the Partnerships and Gateway [funds] successfully contributed to the creation of a significant amount of Canadian digital cultural content, the communications landscape has experienced unprecedented change since their creation,’ noted Heritage.

The CIF looks to encourage development of ‘interactive cultural content’ by focusing on applications for web and mobile platforms. The program will be open to candidates from aboriginal and ethnocultural communities, as well as official-language minority communities and other not-for-profit cultural organizations such as learning institutions and museums.

Online projects that may be supported under the CIF include blogs, interactive timelines, community photos and stories, message boards and social networks – all tools meant to reflect the history of a particular community.

The Partnerships and Gateway funds will continue to operate through 2009/10. Application details for CIF will be made available later this year.