Ekip’s policy lab: Immersive Media

Ekip’s Policy Labs

Figure 1: Policy Lab workshop, photo by the Technopolis Group.

ekip is a EU-funded flagship-project that aims to use the principles of open innovation to establish a policy recommendation “engine” driven by its partners and the active involvement of 40+ Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) networks operating throughout Europe and beyond. Institute for Design Informatics staff Nicola Osborne, Caitlin McDonald, Vikki Jones, and Emma Pirie all support the University of Edinburgh’s involvement with ekip, alongside Principal Investigator Morgan Currie from the School of Social and Political Sciences.

The ekip engine will continuously promote the development and adoption of policy recommendations for the CCIs, resulting in support and guidance that enhances the ability of CCI actors to participate in and contribute to complex innovation processes across Europe. Led by ekip partners Technopolis Group, Policy Labs are meant to bring together practitioners, experts and policy makers to discuss the role of CCIs in a culture and creativity-driven European innovation ecosystem.

The Challenge

For this Policy Lab, the subject was Immersive Media. Participants from all across Europe gathered in Košice, Slovakia to answer the following questions using a guided innovation canvas process developed by Technopolis Group:

• How can R&I policy foster the development of more accessible and scalable XR technologies for the CCI, driving the development of distribution models for immersive content?
• How can R&I policy improve collaboration between creative professionals and technology developers?
• How can R&I policy address the training and education gaps identified in the immersive sector, particularly for non-immersive players?

Figure 2: Caitlin McDonald delivering a briefing on CoStar, photo by the Technopolis Group.

The event opened with a comprehensive briefing from sector experts on current research and innovation activities from around Europe and beyond relevant to the immersive media sector.

• The “Hybrid Catwalk”, a novel immersive media collaboration – Markku Lorentz, Pengu Studios and Stefan Lindgren, Humlab Lund University.
• Project TRANSMIXR, the EU immersive media consortium – Rasa Boocyte, Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision.
• Co-STAR, the UK’s R&D network serving the gaming TV, film and technology sectors, focusing on the University of Edinburgh’s involvement in the Foresight Lab and Realtime Lab – Caitlin McDonald, University of Edinburgh

Working in small interdisciplinary teams from the CCIs, research, and government, groups followed a guided collaborative exercise consisting of the following steps:

• Identifying gaps and needs related to each of the three questions above.
• Brainstorming possible solutions to those gaps and needs.
• Identification of existing best practices from other sectors and policy areas which could contribute further solutions to the existing challenges.

Recommendations and insights emerging from the Policy Lab will be tested in assessment workshops then compiled in a report that will be shared widely across ekip’s networks as well as contributing to policy recommendations made by ekip to the European Commission, potentially shaping the future of the creative industries for years to come.

Ekip will host more Policy Labs throughout 2025. If you’d like to know more about ekip, or get involved with any upcoming activities, follow the website https://ekipengine.eu/ or contact caitlin.mcdonald@ed.ac.uk.