The UK’s screen, gaming, and immersive media industries are launching a doctoral training programme that will train 30 PhD students to tackle workforce diversity and environmental sustainability as a single, connected challenge. These two problems—a lack of diversity in the workforce and slow progress on sustainability—are usually tackled separately, which dilutes resources and can pit them against each other. The programme, called Creative Bridges, brings together universities in Leeds and Warwick with partners ranging from the BBC and ITV to small game studios and the regulator OFCOM. The aim is to produce a new generation of researcher-practitioners who understand how diversity and sustainability interact, rather than treating them as competing priorities. If successful, the programme could reshape how the UK’s creative industries approach these twin challenges. Instead of isolated initiatives, companies could adopt integrated strategies that simultaneously broaden who makes content and reduce the environmental footprint of production. The research will also bridge gaps between physical and virtual production, public service media and platforms, and creativity and AI—all of which are fundamental to making the sector more inclusive and sustainable. Over the next decade, the consortium aims to create lasting training pathways that transform the skills base of the entire screen and gaming workforce.
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Creative Bridges brings together academic expertise and industry partnerships developed in Media, Communication, Creative and Cultural Industries, Design, Performance, Immersive Technologies and Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the Universities of Leeds and Warwick. Together with our partners in screen, gaming and immersive media, we will build on our strengths to develop a cohort of 30 PhD students, focused on inclusive and sustainable futures for screen industries, the places they operate, the people who work in them and the audiences they produce for. We will operationalise the civic university as a new Yorkshire-Midlands doctoral training alliance, connecting the distinctive creative energy observable in our regions, bridging existing corridors and clusters, to create a flexible research environment of diverse partnerships on a strong university research base. In aligning our Arts and Humanities-led research and development (R&D) with the Creative Industries Sector Vision (2023) – building on research informed by business schools, sociology, geography, water and earth sciences, ecology, engineering and computing – we have identified areas of research potential and skills gaps for doctoral training. A lack of diversity in the workforce and slow progress in achieving environmental sustainability are defining challenges. Often addressed in disparate ways which diffuses the creative energy and resources available to tackle them, they are rarely researched together and may compete for attention. Our partners are of different sizes, scales and types representing long-standing corporations (BBC, ITV), global-to-mid-size innovators (EA Games/Codemasters, Rebellion games), smaller agile SMEs (Reflex Arc and Just Add Water), a creative economy intermediary (SAIL) and a regulator (OFCOM). The diverse scope of interests represented in our consortium re-amplifies the challenges that brings them together. These partners will play leading roles in the cohort training elements and are central to the objectives: steering the programme over its lifetime, contributing to new communities of practice and providing placements. The collaboration across two key regions will offer a fresh iteration to creative economy research framed by metaphors of ‘cities and the creative class’ (Florida 2003), ‘creative clusters’ (NESTA 2010) ‘creative hubs’ (Pratt, 2021), ‘creative spill overs’ (Frontier Economics 2023) and ‘creative corridors’ (ACE, Creative PEC, RSA 2023). Spanning ‘creative bridges’, our PhD students will connect academic and industry perspectives through challenge- and practice-led research. They will address the need for connected knowledge, skills and workflows for screen, gaming and immersive industries. The research produced will bridge gaps between physical and virtual, people and policies, public service media and platforms, theory and practice, storytelling and data, creativity and AI, all of which are fundamental to issues of diversity and sustainability. Therefore, the objectives are to nurture a new generation of researcher-practitioners; build co-supervision across regions; support diversity and sustainability as inter-related challenges for the creative economy; redefine the Arts and Humanities PhD experience; develop skills and techniques for doctoral students based on experiential learning; and finally, to create a legacy programme of training pathways in sustainability and diversity research. The Creative Bridges consortium will aim to bring about wholesale, systemic transformation over the next decade, by invigorating the skills base of individuals entering, or already within the screen, gaming and immersive media sectors through an innovative programme. We will generate significant outcomes and impact for society and the economy by addressing open and common challenges in partnership with industry who bring diverse perspectives and solutions.
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