Horizon is a multidisciplinary centre for Digital Economy (DE) research and impact. We balance the development of new technologies to capture and analyse human data, with explorations of how these can be used to deliver powerful experiences to people, with an awareness and understanding of the human and social values that must underpin these. We follow a user-centred approach, undertaking research in the wild based on principles of open innovation. In its first phase, Horizon has established a core team of over 50 researchers and has reached out to build a wider network of 35 academic and 200 industry, public and third-sector partners. We have established a Centre for Doctoral Training and inaugurated the DE All Hands series of conferences and national DE CDT Summer School. World-class scientific outputs in diverse disciplines have been balanced with economic, cultural and societal impact. This proposal builds on this critical mass to enable a step-change in Horizon's translational research and impact. We respond to the changing nature of the digital economy as it matures, as the social, physical and digital become blended and as human data becomes an increasingly valuable asset. We offer a vision in which human data enables the creation and delivery of highly personal experiences. We propose to address three major challenges. The first is to establish new technologies that collect and interpret our human data in a more transparent way. The second is to be able to better understand and design new kinds of experiences that employ these technologies to promote the values of personal fulfilment, wellbeing and sustainability. The third is to address key ethical challenges around design for privacy and new models of ownership. We will work closely with a range of external partners whose interests span: computing and analytics; social policy; and diverse sectors of the DE including creative industries, retail, fast moving consumer goods, finance, energy, transportation and healthcare. We will engage these through a programme of agile translational research projects. These will be integrated into an overarching strategic impact campaign that revolves around three flagships. In turn, these will be supported by two further programmes; one targeted at sustaining the wider DE community and the second at developing the capacity of our researchers to deliver translational research and impact.

This unique consortium draws on the research excellence of interdisciplinary and complementary design innovation labs at three universities - Lancaster University, Newcastle University and the Royal College of Art and connects it with public and private sectors, linking large and small-scale businesses, service providers and citizens. Together, our expertise in developing and applying creative techniques to navigate unexplored challenges includes that of designers, artists, curators, producers, broadcasters, engineers, managers, technologists and writers - and draws on wider expertise from across the partner universities and beyond. The Creative Exchange responds to profound changes in practice in the creative and media-based industries stimulated by the opening of the digital public space, the ability of everyone to access, explore and create in any aspect of the digital space, moving from 'content consumption' to 'content experience'. It explores new forms of engagement and exchange in the broadcast, performing and visual arts, digital media, design and gaming sectors, by focusing on citizen-led content, interactive narrative, radical personalization and new forms of value creation in the context of the 'experience economy'. The primary geographic focus is the Northwest of England centred around the opportunity presented by the growth of MediaCityUK and its surrounding economy. The three universities act as local test beds with field trials in London, Lancaster and Newcastle prior to larger public facing trials in the northwest. This will support the North West regional strategy for growth in digital and creative media industries, whilst generating comparative research and development locally, nationally and internationally. The Creative Exchange has been developed in response to a paradigm shift in content creation and modes of distribution in a digitally connected world, which has profound impact for the arts and humanities. This transformational-change is taking place within the landscape of a growing digital public space that includes archives, data, information and content. How we navigate and experience this space - and how we generate content for and within it - is central to how we create economic, social, cultural and personal value. The Hub draws on new and agile approaches to knowledge exchange for the creative economy that have been previously developed by the partner universities and new ones co-developed with specialist arts organizations, sector organizations and communities of users.

Over the last decade, the creative industries have been revolutionised by the Internet and the digital economy. The UK, already punching above its weight in the global cultural market, stands at a pivotal moment where it is well placed to build a cultural, business and regulatory infrastructure in which first movers as significant as Google, Facebook, Amazon or iTunes may emerge and flourish, driving new jobs and industry. However, for some creators and rightsholders the transition from analogue to digital has been as problematic as it has been promising. Cultural heritage institutions are also struggling to capitalise upon new revenue streams that digitisation appears to offer, while maintaining their traditional roles. Policymakers are hampered by a lack of consensus across stakeholders and confused by partisan evidence lacking robust foundations. Research in conjunction with industry is needed to address these problems and provide support for legislators. CREATe will tackle this regulatory and business crisis, helping the UK creative industry and arts sectors survive, grow and become global innovation pioneers, with an ambitious programme of research delivered by an interdisciplinary team (law, business, economics, technology, psychology and cultural analysis) across 7 universities. CREATe aims to act as an honest broker, using open and transparent methods throughout to provide robust evidence for policymakers and legislators which can benefit all stakeholders. CREATe will do this by: - focussing on studying and collaborating with SMEs and individual creators as the incubators of innovation; - identifying "good, bad and emergent business models": which business models can survive the transition to the digital?, which cannot?, and which new models can succeed and scale to drive growth and jobs in the creative economy, as well as supporting the public sector in times of recession?; - examining empirically how far copyright in its current form really does incentivise or reward creative work, especially at the SME/micro level, as well as how far innovation may come from "open" business models and the "informal economy"; - monitoring copyright reform initiatives in Europe, at WIPO and other international fora to assess how they impact on the UK and on our work; - using technology as a solution not a problem: by creating pioneering platforms and tools to aid creators and users, using open standards and released under open licences; - examining how to increase and derive revenues from the user contribution to the creative economy in an era of social media, mash-up, data mining and "prosumers"; - assessing the role of online intermediaries such as ISPs, social networks and mobile operators to see if they encourage or discourage the production and distribution of cultural goods, and what role they should play in enforcing copyright. Given the important governing role of these bodies should they be subject to regulation like public bodies, and if so, how?; - consider throughout this work how the public interest and human rights, such as freedom of expression, privacy, and access to knowledge for the socially or physically excluded, may be affected either positively or negatively by new business models and new ways to enforce copyright. To investigate these issues our work will be arranged into seven themes: SMEs and good, bad and emergent business models; Open business models; Regulation and enforcement; Creators and creative practice; Online intermediaries and physical and virtual platforms; User creation, behaviour and norms; and, Human rights and the public interest. Our deliverables across these themes will be drawn together to inform a Research Blueprint for the UK Creative Economy to be launched in October 2016.