Loughborough University will be part of a new research team of creative sector specialists, established as part of a government project to give a £50 billion boost to the creative industries in the UK.
Announced as part of the government’s Creative Industries Sector Vision, the new Insight and Foresight Unit will be led by Goldsmiths, which has been chosen as the preferred bidder to be the host organisation, alongside partners at the British Film Institute, the University of Edinburgh, and Loughborough.
This Insight and Foresight Unit will support the CoSTAR (Convergent Screen Technologies and performance in Realtime) national infrastructure, which will ensure the UK stays at the cutting-edge of new virtual production techniques for stage, screen and live events.
Examples of virtual productions include the hugely popular ABBA Voyage live show and Disney Plus’s The Mandalorian.
The Insight and Foresight Unit will focus on identifyingindustry trends and insights associated with creative technologies and informing future policy and investment for the screen and performance sectors. This includes considering improved ecological sustainability, a more diverse and inclusive workforce, new workflows and ways of working, and audience engagement with creative productions realised through theCoSTARinfrastructure.
Loughborough’s involvement will be led by Graham Hitchen, Professor of Practice within the Institute for Media and Creative Industries, and head of the University’s new Policy Unit. Loughborough is already established as a research leader in the creative industries, being home to the Creative Research AndInnovation Centre (CRAIC).
CRAIC recently received funding from the Screen Industries Growth Network to create a framework to enable the mapping of virtual production assets across the UK. It has also worked with the Audience of the Future and Creative Industries Clusters team at UKRI to understand Creative R&D and to help shape thinking and future investments in the Creative Technology space.
Professor Hitchen said: “This investment provides a brilliant opportunity to be at the forefront of future thinking about creative technologies in the UK and will enable us to build on our research strengths.”
Professor Jonny Freeman, Academic Lead for Knowledge Exchange at Goldsmiths, and Principal Investigator of the IFU added:“The UK’s Creative Industries have an incredible reputation globally and the CoSTAR infrastructure investment announced today will help to secure this.
“The consortium we have assembled for the Insight and Foresight Unit is formidable. It combines Goldsmiths’ expertise in the immersive, audience and virtual production sector, BFI’s unrivalled screen sector expertise and data, Edinburgh’s leadership in developing new forms of data to empower the creative industries, and Loughborough’s track record in research and policy on creative technologies and creative R&D with the support of its new Policy Unit.”
The unit was announced as part of the government’s Creative Industries Sector Vision to maximise the potential of the UK creative industries and grow the economy, so they generate an extra £50 billion for the economy and support a million more jobs by 2030.
