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Six organisations will receive a total of almost £3million in the second round of the Arts Council's Ambition for Excellence programme which aims to invigorate and support ambition and talent across the arts and cultural sector.  

The funding will be used towards a range of exciting projects that will help give an international dimension to excellent work - especially outside London; nurture the development of high quality new work with a focus on outdoor and festival contexts; and grow and develop talent and leadership in the regions.

The Cornubian Arts and Science Trust will use their £500,000 for GROUNDWORK, an ambitious three-year contemporary art programme culminating in an international arts festival in Cornwall. A programme of commissioned field trips and sited works during 2016 and 2017 will build towards a high-profile festival in 2018. Rooted in contemporary art, the festival will be interdisciplinary, involving science, music, performance, film and dance in collaboration with arts organisations in Cornwall and beyond. It will bring outstanding international artists to Cornwall and support creative education for young people through collaboration with Further Education and Higher Education, promoting diversity and innovation. GROUNDWORK will provide experiences ranging from the intimate to the spectacular.

The Lowry will receive £749,948 towards a project that launches a dynamic collaborative producing partnership between three of the country's leading large-scale dance venues - Birmingham Hippodrome, The Lowry and Sadler's Wells. Through a two-year pilot initiative the partners will develop and deliver an ambitious programme of high-quality large scale dance, relevant and meaningful to audiences and artists.

Metal will use their award of £277,500 to create Estuary - a new biennial arts festival that will celebrate the spectacular Thames Estuary. In 2016 the programme of contemporary art, literature, film and music will see 150 artists working in partnership with Estuarine communities to develop and present their work. Estuary will highlight the outstanding creativity and cultural importance of this region, whilst also celebrating one of its most important landmarks.

An award of £495,000 will support Culture Squared deliver the Bradford Literature Festival. The festival is developing international partnerships - from Bronte and Japanese collaborations, to a Sufi programme encompassing Pakistan and Turkey, and the presentation of International Booker prize events - to further connect with and grow more diverse audiences in Bradford. The festival is the UK's first literary festival programming for all communities, led and curated by two British Muslim women of Pakistani heritage.

The Young Vic will receive £250,000 towards their Directors Program, the only one of its kind in the UK.  It provides young and emerging directors with professional support, networks, skills, research & development and work opportunities. In 2016 the Program will reach over 1,200 people in a variety of ways, extending across the UK and beyond, nurturing the most talented directors and artistic leaders. The Program is especially focussed on widening the range of backgrounds of those who will be the future leaders of theatre in England and it promotes and encourages greater collaboration between England's producing theatres.

Blackpool Grand Theatre has been awarded £680,000. Their project will be delivered in partnership with LeftCoast, the Creative People and Places team for Blackpool and Wyre. Made up of two distinctive productions that celebrate Blackpool's unique heritage and landscape, 2016 will see DreamThinkSpeak's Absent, a walk-through dreamscape, re-imagined for the North West. This will be followed, in 2017, by a re-telling of the King Kong story that works across artforms, multi-media platforms and locations across the town. Kong Live! will be written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce and will involve hundreds of local people in its delivery.

Alison Clark, National Director, Combined Arts & Programme Lead, Ambition for Excellence, Arts Council England, says: 'This round of awards represents a set of fantastic projects, and really illustrates the long term artistic impact that the programme is designed to support. All of the projects will make a real difference to talent development and to the range and quality of work available to audiences and communities across the country. Our investment will also ensure that these organisations and the artists they work with have substantial international dimensions, helping to support UK's status as a place for cultural innovation.'

Ambition for excellence is a rolling programme, from 28 May 2015 to 27 October 2017, and applications will be received in two stages: an expression of interest followed by an invite to apply. Applicants can apply for between £100,000 and £750,000, across a period of up to three years.

Find out more about the Ambition for Excellence fund here.