Immersive, Innovative, and Interactive Experience (IIIE): A Technology Driven London-Shanghai Partnership in Mixed Realities and Performing Arts

This is an ambitious interdisciplinary collaborative project aiming to facilitate UK-Shanghai business in the theatre and performance space, focusing on immersive and mixed reality experiences, via curated networking and partnership building events involving creative IP companies, academics and technical partners in the UK and Shanghai, including a series of Investor Showcases to fund development of concepts/IP surfaced by project partners. Our UK-Shanghai Consortium will be led by Goldsmiths, University of London, and will include:
- leading UK arts, cultural, immersive and digital content partners
- leading Shanghai arts, tech, immersive and academic partners

The project will result in sustainable model boosting economic impact of immersive and strong legacy collaborative R&D space, where project partners will share interest in commercial distribution company to be set up in Shanghai. Other setting up one or more companies in Shanghai, we will also build:
- Goldsmiths Shanghai Research Centre
- Social VR and online digital platform for knowledge exchange and collaboration, incorporating immersive technology

This project is built around creating direct impact for UK and Chinese creative industries. The primary beneficiaries will be the substantial list of project partners who participate in this project and their networks of collaborators. These will include the partners who have contributed letters of support to this project, but also further partners that we anticipate will take part in the project activities.

These creative industry partners will benefit through improved cross-national collaboration. In particular they will gain:
- A better understanding of the other nation's creative industry and market. This will be through presentations and networking at events.
- A greater understanding of how to do business and collaborate with the other country, also through presentation and networking
- Access to new collaborators in the other country. This will happen directly through networking opportunities at our events, in particular there will be frequent break-out group work that will facilitate working relationships
- Access to investment from both UK and China. This will be achieved through investor involvement in events and specific investor showcases.
- Access to markets in the other country. This will be through collaborations developed during the project, investment gained and better understanding of the other country. We will also set up a linked commercial vehicle to enable commercialisation of IP across nations.

These impacts can be measured in terms of financial value of investments (our minimum target is £10 million), number of collaborative ventures formed and the audience size for the creative outputs of those ventures.

While the immediate benefits will be to the participants, we do foresee a number of broader benefits.

The creative sectors of both countries will benefit more broadly. We aim to achieve a large enough scale of collaboration that its impact will spread to other companies. This will be due to creating a sufficient critical mass of individuals who have experience of cross-national collaboration and a more widely diffused understanding of cross-cultural working in both sectors. We expect the knowledge and collaborative relationships to spread through existing networks within the creative sectors of both UK and Shanghai (we have a number of partners with very strong networks). The project also includes the creation of durable institutions that will support further collaboration beyond the length of the project, including linked commercial vehicles in Shanghai and London to facilitate cooperation and IP exploitation and a joint research centre.

All of these impacts will have a positive economic impact on the UK creative sector and economy more broadly and strengthen the development of the Shanghai creative sector.

There will also be a positive impact on audiences in both countries through the creation of new creative work, and the greater creative innovation that comes from the cross-fertilization of ideas across cultures.