Chancellor George Osborne announced in the Budget that the York-led Hub is one of a network of six new multidisciplinary research centres, worth a total of £45m with partner contributions, that will drive forward the UK’s Digital Economy research, knowledge and skills
The five-year investment will come via the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and InnovateUK. The DC Hub will provide an access point for cutting edge research in digital creativity technologies.
Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson said: “This latest investment demonstrates our commitment to maximising the digital revolution for the UK. These Centres will lead the way in developing innovative digital products which enhance our daily lives -from personalised digital health services to the use of interactive media in education.
“By harnessing our international research excellence, in partnership with local and regional expertise, these Centres will accelerate Digital technology innovation for business and society’s benefit.”
Working with Government, business, the third sector and the public, the DC Hub will harness the power of digital creativity to provide new technologies for digital games and interactive media, exploiting the space where they converge to benefit science, society, education and culture.
The DC Hub will employ 15 of the best impact-driven digital creativity researchers in the world at levels from Professorial to post-doctoral to transfer knowledge and expertise gained from the £90m of investment in Digital Creativity Research at York and Falmouth University, Goldsmiths (University of London) and Cass Business School over the last 10 years.
The University of York’s new DC Hub has partnered with BBC Research & Development to explore the delivery of digital services over the internet, prototyping new interactive and immersive story forms created from new flexible content formats. The partnership will offer new opportunities and challenges for the craft of storytelling and explore the capabilities of a new generation of digital content players.
The DC Hub will also work closely with the sister EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games and Games Intelligence (IGGI), helping to promote innovations arising from the research of the 56 IGGI PhD students and with City of York Council to build on connections forming with cities worldwide through York’s recent UNESCO City of Media Arts designation.