£8m funding to support immersive content creation #FutureofEducation

Businesses can apply for a share of up to £8 million for innovation projects that support better, more immersive experiences.

A new £8 million funding competition will enable virtual, augmented and mixed reality experiences – also known as immersive content – to be created faster and more efficiently by UK content creators.

The competition is part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund’s audience of the future programme. Up to £33 million is available to develop new products and services that exploit immersive technologies.

Funding is provided by UK Research and Innovation through Innovate UK.

Find out more about the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.

Improving the current ‘state of the art’

Over the next 20 years, it is expected that immersive technologies will fundamentally change the way we experience products and services – including art, shops and classrooms.

For the UK to become a world-leading developer of immersive experiences, we need to support content creators to produce immersive content that goes above and beyond the current ‘state of the art’.

Doing so will create better experiences for audiences while unlocking growth for creative businesses, increasing exports and creating new, high-quality jobs.

Find out more about the audience of the future programme.

Exploiting commercial opportunities

In this competition, we are looking to fund innovation projects that explore and exploit commercial opportunities within the creative industries.

Projects should support immersive content to be created faster, more efficiently, or in ways that significantly improve on the technology that’s available today.

They can either:

• develop tools, products or services for creating and delivering immersive content
• demonstrate innovation in software, hardware or development methodology

We are looking to fund projects within 9 creative industries:

• advertising and marketing
• architecture
• crafts
• design, including products, graphics and fashion
• film, TV, video, radio and photography
• computer games and services
• publishing
• museums, galleries and libraries
• music, performance and visual arts

Competition information

• the competition is open and the deadline for applications is midday on 28 November 2018
• projects should be business-led and include at least one SME. They should have at least one participant who is a content creator
• projects led by a single SME can last up to 12 months and have total costs of £100,000 to £250,000
• collaborative projects can last up to 18 months and have total costs of £250,000 to £1 million
• businesses could attract up to 70% of their eligible project costs
• all project work must be carried out in the UK and the results exploited here

Find out more about the competition and apply.

Potential applicants should consider attending a briefing event to find out more about the competition and how to make a quality application. Briefing events are on:

• 8 October 2018 in Belfast
• 9 October 2018 in Edinburgh
• 15 October 2018 in Cardiff
• 16 October 2018 in Manchester
• 18 October 2018 in London or via an online webinar
• 8 November 2018 in Newcastle