Virtual Heritage Futures: Navigating virtual technologies, creative industries and AI for cultural heritage in the UK and China

The United Kingdom is home to 2,500 museums, of which 1,800 are accredited and formally registered, whilst there are 2,389 registered archives in the UK, of which 122 are national, 654 locals, and 324 university-based, with overall total of 4,889 heritage public institutions, largely on both public funding and income generated from visitors and tourists. China, by comparison, has an incredible growth in number of museums from 300 in 1978 to 3,589 museums in 2020, of which 3,054 are state-owned museums, of which 1,514 are public, whilst 535 are private. Museums in China have been classified as First Class, Second Class and Third Class, but only 851 museums have been accredited, yet they are very popular for educational activities and approximately 334,610 activities were organised during 2019. Boosting over 8,000 annual exhibitions, over 20 million items collections, most Museums are entry fee-free and boost 1 billion visits a year. Whilst Creative industries and digital heritage technology has been growing in the UK for a few decades, it is still growing, yet at fast pace in China. Since late 2004, the concept of the creative industries arrived in China. It was warmly welcomed in Shanghai and then subsequently adopted with some degree of caution in Beijing. In the years since, officials, scholars, practitioners, entrepreneurs and developers have exploited the idea of creative industries, and a range of associated terms, to construct an alternative vision of an emerging China.


The Project will study how major R&D funding programmes in both countries are driving radical change with a dramatic rise in creating new digital cultural content, datasets, virtual tours, and experiences for user engagement in the museum and cultural heritage sectors. Through sectors surveys and case studies of key projects, partnerships and successful collaborations, the project will generate a series of new datasets, analysis of effective strategies, emerging knowledge, and skillsets to inform future UK-China partnerships in the digital and virtual heritage domains. The research team of the Centre for Architecture, Urbanism and Global Heritage (CAUGH) at Nottingham Trent University, will undertake this project in collaboration with key Chinese partners with nationally-leading research team and knowledge in this field, including: Tong-Ji University's School of Architecture and Urban Planning; The School of Design & Arts at Beijing Institute of Technology; the Old Summer Palace Authority through the jointly established the CEntre of Virtual Intelligence for Cultural Heritage [CEViC]; and The Communications University of China through the recently developed China-UK University Museum Alliance. It will provide an important contribution to inform policy, investment and support programmes that help both governments address key Sustainable Development Goals in both countries, looking at Creative economy, Sustainable cities and infrastructures and, Sustainable preservation of cultural heritage.