MyWorld Collaborative Research and Development: Round 2

To lead a project your organisation:

• must be a UK registered business of any size, not for profit organisation or charity
• must collaborate with one of the four universities in the West of England region
• can collaborate with other UK registered organisations
• must intend to exploit the results from or in the West of England area

Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.

The lead organisation can be based outside of the West of England area. Justification must be made in your application as to why the project could not be led by an organisation from the West of England area. You must explain how the project outputs will be exploited for the economic benefit of the West of England region.

Collaboration

You must collaborate with at least one of the Universities based in the West of England:

• University of Bath
• Bath Spa University
• University of Bristol
• University of the West of England

You can also collaborate with additional organisations. These organisations must be one of the following UK registered:

• business of any size
• academic institution
• charity
• not for profit
• public sector organisation
• research and technology organisation (RTO)

A business, charity or not for profit can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications.

If a business, charity or not for profit is not leading any application it can collaborate in any number of applications.

An academic institution or research and technology organisation (RTO) can collaborate on any number of applications.

Your project must:

• have a grant funding request between £100,000 and £200,000
• start by 1 July 2024
• end by 31 December 2025
• last between 12 and 18 months
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the West of England area

Projects must always start on the first of the month and this must be stated within your application. Your project start date will be reflected in your grant offer letter if you are successful.

The aim of this competition is to support business-focused research and innovation in the creative industries in the West of England. MyWorld supports the generation of innovative ideas and solutions for the creative industries. It addresses the need to develop diverse technologies associated with:

• the capture, manipulation, distribution and consumption of experiences, as defined in the specific themes section
• the understanding of audiences responses to, and interactions with, those experiences

This includes the requirement to deliver adaptive audience experiences efficiently, at scale and optimised for quality across a multitude of devices.

Your project must:

• provide solutions that tackle new or emerging challenges or needs of the Creative Continuum, as defined in the specific themes section
• demonstrate a realistic potential to deliver business growth, scale-up, and job creation
• actively share knowledge and outputs with the MyWorld programme and wider creative technology industry

Your project must focus on screen based and immersive technologies within the creative sector industries including one or more of the following:

Creating experiences

How acquisition, production and delivery relate to narrative, aesthetic and content types or formats in modulating experience, leading to new intelligent acquisition and production methods that facilitate immersion.

For example:

• utilising machine learning for virtual human capture
• rigging and animation
• low light video acquisition and restoration
• creation and testing of automated physical platforms for cameras
• refining motion capture data with machine learning and large datasets

Delivering experiences

Platforms, network technology and representations that support new forms of content delivery and interactivity and delivery processes that ensure the preservation of immersive properties during transmission.

For example:

• developing mobile edge computing (MEC) to support enhanced location accuracy
• improved latency
• media aware network slicing
• exploiting the potential of deep learning for enhancing video compression

Measuring experiences

Perceptually robust means of assessing media quality and immersion that inform creative practice and editorial decision making and that differentiate the impacts of technology and narrative.

For example:

• creation of new tools and platforms for audience assessment
• assessment of existing tools and platforms

We define screen based and immersive experiences as multisensory narrative or interactive experiences mediated through technologies including, but not limited to:

• ambisonic and binaural sound
• application of Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to creative technology
• audience assessment, measurement tools and platforms
• distribution technologies, 5G, EDGE,
• filming and post production tools, including virtual production studios, drones, robotics,
• haptics and other sensory interfaces
• virtual, mixed and augmented reality (VR and AR)
• other creative, content and screen experiences and interfaces, including but not limited to, public displays, live events, theatre, cinema, hybrid performance, emerging devices, for example, AR glasses

The industry sectors this may address include:

• advertising and marketing
• design: product, graphic and fashion
• broadcast, film, TV, video and audio
• computer games and services
• heritage, museums, archives, galleries and libraries
• immersive installations, live events, music, performing and visual arts
• sports and esports
• creator platforms, tools and services, including user generated
• production and consumer electronics

Neither list is intended to be exhaustive. These are examples of potential application areas. We will consider all proposals that address the challenge areas and meet the criteria for eligibility.

An in-person briefing event will be held on Tuesday 10th October (2-4pm) at Bristol Tech Festival: register to attend.

In addition, an online briefing event will be held on Thursday 19th October (starting at 1pm): register to attend.

If you would like help to find a collaboration partner, contact Innovate UK KTN’s Creative Industries team or our Place team.