This ambitious project brings together leading expert partners from across the screen sector and academia to help positively shape the future of the UK's screen and creative industries by better understanding new technologies' impact on three critical challenges: environmental sustainability, equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), and the workforce impacts of AI.
Supporting a UK-wide programme of workshops, foresight scenario development, and place-based policy pilots, the project will engage hundreds of stakeholders across the country, from industry leaders and creatives to policymakers and educators. It will co-design new toolkits, resources and programmes to ensure that technology adoption in the production of film, TV, and digital entertainment is equitable, inclusive, and environmentally responsible.
Partners working with Goldsmiths, University of London to deliver ACES include University of Edinburgh and Loughborough University with expert not-for-profits Julie's Bicycle and Sunderland Software City, and Deborah Williams OBE.
Rishi Coupland, the BFI's Executive Director of Industry Development & Innovation, said: "Technology within the sector continues to evolve at pace, creating significant shifts for the industry. ACES seeks to give us the insights, knowledge, and tools to centre equity in the adoption of new technology and innovation. Focusing on environmental sustainability, equity, diversity and inclusion, and the workforce impacts of AI, our ambition is to help the industry build a thriving, future-ready creative ecosystem."
The BFI National Lottery Innovation Challenge Fund, as part of the BFI's National Lottery Funding Plan, 2023-2026, seeks to support new solutions to the UK screen sector's most critical challenges. Between 2024 and 2026, up to £1.8 million will be distributed across up to five challenges, to help not-for-profit organisations to innovate, developing new approaches to persistent problems, whilst also gaining insights that benefit the whole screen sector. Its first call focused on the video games industry, followed by AI for screen archives, and EDI data collection for film production. As part of the 2026-2029 BFI National Lottery Plan, the Innovation Challenge Fund has £2.55m available across multiple challenges over the three-year period.
For more information on the BFI National lottery Innovation Challenge Fund see:https://www.bfi.org.uk/get-funding-support/bfi-national-lottery-innovation-challenge-fund
.png)
