The screen industries in Yorkshire and the Humber have seen rapid economic growth over the last decade. The decision by Channel 4 to move its headquarters to Leeds is recognition of the quality and potential of the region’s creative workforce to continue to innovate. With new technologies for creating media content emerging and new platforms to access it growing quickly, where the industry goes next is an open question.
The Creative Futures call will fund research projects to guide the next steps for businesses, workers, policymakers and universities to enhance future planning for Yorkshire and the Humber’s creative economy.
XR Stories and SIGN are seeking expressions of interest from academic teams to produce new knowledge for academic and industry benefit for the region’s screen industries.
Principal investigators at UK higher education institutions are invited to submit an expression of interest. This can include research organisations, industry stakeholders or independent consultants.
Research proposals must demonstrate the benefits to Yorkshire and the Humber and cover one of the four areas:
- Business development intelligence for Yorkshire and the Humber creative businesses
- Building an environmentally friendly creative XR sector
- Yorkshire and the Humber Creative R&D Futures
- Virtual Production Horizons
All project teams must demonstrate their commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in line with XR Stories and SIGN’s diversity and inclusion policy.
Jon Swords, Senior Research Fellow at XR Stories and SIGN at the University of York says, “We’ve seen rapid growth of the region’s screen industries in recent years backed up with investment in R&D, skills and training, and infrastructure, including Channel 4’s move to Leeds. But where does the sector go next? What technologies should companies invest in? Where are the big opportunities? This research will help answer those questions.”
To find out more about this call, please visit our Creative Futures expressions of interest page.
Expressions of interest will close at 5pm on Thursday, 25 November, 2021.