XR Network+ Virtual Production in the Digital Economy will provide a ten-year research agenda for content creation and consumption. XR Network+ is founded on research collaboration, co-creation and challenge-led innovation, and designed from the ground up to build a community of academic research and industry R&D at the convergence of ideas, technologies, and creative practice in Virtual Production (VP) to deliver impact and opportunity for the whole of the digital economy. Virtual Production (VP) is an emergent area of multi-disciplinary activity encompassing the wider application of digital creativity techniques and technologies across many domains. It is changing the landscape of technology-driven storytelling, media, film and television content production workflows, live and immersive experiences, both large and small scale. The UK screen industries sector is currently investing heavily in traditional studio infrastructure, with demand for production space currently outstripping supply. However, compact, flexible and technology-driven VP facilities will help to shape the future of these and other studios, their production practices, the content they make and hence the audiences that consume this content. This change is based on how a new generation of real-time technologies (motion capture, spatial computing, data, AI, machine learning, volumetric capture, haptics, real-time rendering, immersive XR and responsive media) offer, for the first time, the promise of integrating production processes and workflows from initial concept through to final result. XR Network+ will build on the success of the AHRC Creative Industries Clusters Programme (CICP) and the significant interest that has emerged from these projects in supporting R&D in XR (eXtended Reality) technologies as it converges with VP. The CICP demonstrates how leading universities can act as anchors at the centre of geographical/sectoral creative industries clusters and use their research capacity and expertise for the benefit of their SMEs, bringing opportunities for place-based growth, and economic, social and cultural impact. XR Network+ will land at a critical point, during the final year of the CICP and as a number of significant VP investments come online, offering a short window of opportunity to harness connections and capabilities. XR Network+ builds a bridge between five current CICP projects and will leverage other core UKRI, local government and industry investment. It will drive a community-led programme of complementary VP research and innovation to unlock the potential of content creation and consumption for the whole of the digital economy and related sectors. Research challenges co-created with project partners at application include: VP Integration of virtual game worlds and physical content; sound design in VP contexts; building VP environments, characters and objects; issues of ethics and IP in the use of digital assets and data; AI and data-driven automation; translation and impact in the digital economy. XR Network+ activities will be built across five stages corresponding to the five years of the project (1) Engage; (2) Explore; (3) Challenge; (4) Respond; (5) Report and Renew. An Annual Networking and Showcase event will provide a key point of dissemination for each stage of activity. Feasibility funding will support a potential range of research activities based on best practice from the five CICP projects: a Creative Bridge programme for early career researchers; a Knowledge Transfer Partnership Model; small grant funding; challenge funding; portfolio building; and commissioned research to evaluate the project and build a roadmap for future activity. XR Network+ is important and timely in terms of the significant current interest and investment in VP and the need to coordinate the UK's research base alongside industry and regional investments to provide a pathway for next stage investment and growth at a national level.

Future Screens NI comprises the two higher education institutions (Ulster University and QUB) and a number of key industrial partners central to the creative economy in the region, including NI Screen, BBC, Belfast City Council, Belfast Harbour, Causeway Enterprise Agency, Digital Catapult, Catalyst Inc., RTE, Games NI, Kainos, Invest NI, Techstart NI, Matrix and Tourism NI. The Northern Ireland Assembly defines the creative industries as 'those industries which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property'. The Partnership has, from this, developed a definition of, and a working model for, the creative industries in NI which is focused on participation, cultural and economic growth, and social and economic regeneration placing the Partnership as a leading developmental catalyst in this NI sector. In the context of Northern Ireland, the creative industries are more than just another key economic sector, generating, according to DCMS figures, £1.01 billion in gross added value of the NI economy, and employing 2.9% of the entire NI workforce. For a region emerging from a period of profound conflict, and social and cultural division and dysfunction, the creative industries sector has continued to offer an alternative and successful paradigm, a new model for cultural expression, personal growth, and economic attainment. The cluster of organisations involved in Future Screens NI may be defined as: (a) audiovisual-led, complemented by the strength of the digital sector and the impact of technology in other more traditional sectors, eg. in tourism, heritage, textiles and crafts; (b) operating across NI as a region, driven by the Belfast travel-to-work-area (add ref to NESTA) but with a region-wide remit linking, in particular, to the North West of the province; c) a spatially defined multi-industry cluster that is distinctive within the UK, shaped by the complexity of cultural space in the aftermath of 20th-century conflict, a plurality of commercial and cultural relationships including across the border with the Republic of Ireland, the role of economic development bodies such as Invest NI and Catalyst Inc., and the significant investment of the HEIs and FE colleges in the creative industries; d) comprising emerging animation, games and immersive technologies industries, which although small by international standards, is one of the fastest growing sectors of the NI economy. The overarching aim of Future Screens NI is to develop a new understanding of the role the creative industries can play in advancing the NI economy both in terms of financial growth and the creation of new employment opportunities. It will do this by researching new technologies and opportunities, developing appropriate educational and training models, placing NI creative businesses in front of international markets, and working with government and other key agencies to ensure sustained growth. The importance of this intervention is that it establishes the creative industries in NI as a neutral space where contemporary and emerging industrial forms can be advanced in secure settings in a transitional period which is still informed by underlying political tensions. The role of the Cluster as a safe space for high-risk creative endeavour in a low-risk innovation environment, one that fosters experiment and cultural opportunity, cannot be overestimated. As Benedict Anderson (1991) has shown, communities interact through concepts of imagined connection and Future Screens NI will actively work as a hub to create new forms of imagined community which advance and normalise political stability while creating real employment and building economic growth.

As cultural heritage organisations digitise their collections and increase public access, moving image portals like the IFI Player, RTÉ Archives, BFI Player and BBC iPlayer provide audiences with virtual screening rooms to view their shared audiovisual history on demand. But the creative reuse of moving image archive material remains problematic, beset by questions of copyright law, rights clearance and "fair dealing" exceptions, and an audiovisual archives sector without a standardised framework to open up access to this material for creative reuse by young filmmakers in education and the community. Young filmmakers cannot access this material without significant funding from film funds or broadcasters to pay commercial license fees. The Make Film History network will address this problem by developing a new, sustainable model for the creative reuse of archive material for non-commercial use by young filmmakers. This pilot study will offer audiovisual archives within the network a low-risk framework for long-term collaboration with stakeholders working with young filmmakers in education, training and the community. The network will ask: "How can we license moving image archive material for creative reuse by young filmmakers for education, training and community use? How can the creative reuse of this material increase community engagement with hidden cultural heritage and strengthen communities through new work created by emerging filmmakers reflecting on the past and developing talent for the future"? The network will build on the success of the innovative Archives for Education project, led by the UK principal investigator Dr O'Sullivan at Kingston School of Art. Supported by the British Film Institute and BBC Archive Editorial, the project provides a new model for the creative reuse of archive film in higher education, giving student filmmakers access to archive material from the BBC and the BFI National Archive for creative reuse on course-related projects for the first time. Fifty-five institutions have signed up to the scheme, allowing student filmmakers to connect their vision of Britain today with archival representations from their parents' and grandparents' generations. The network will take an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to exploring the theme of Digital Humanities, Cultural Heritage and the Creative Industries, leveraging advances in video technology to open up access to hidden audiovisual heritage for creative reuse by the next generation of young filmmakers under a non-commercial license; and developing cross-sectoral partnerships and creative exchange between academic researchers, audiovisual archives, cultural heritage organisations, film festivals and organisations working with young people in education and the creative industries. Our timetable of events is strategically designed around regional film festivals with strong industry programmes, where industry experts gather to exchange ideas and knowledge and meet new talent. Our events will take three forms: a series of industry panels and workshops, exploring the key themes and research questions of the network; creative workshops where young filmmakers can engage with archive material and regional archives and training organisations can pilot creative reuse in a festival setting; and follow-on events where some of the work produced through the project can be screened for the local community and the findings of the project can be disseminated. These activities will increase youth and community engagement with audiovisual heritage and bring regional stakeholders together around regional hubs of archive material. The network will develop a new model for the creative reuse of our audiovisual heritage by young filmmakers, inspiring new films about their communities and on the theme of borders and migration which bring a fresh voice to representations of the past and an enhanced awareness of copyright law and creative reuse.