Who we work with

The centre fosters and nurtures connections and collaborations: locally with local community, policy makers, stakeholders and service providers; nationally with government organisations, businesses and industries, NGOs and arts organisations; and internationally in building and maintaining networks of global leaders in research. The centre works to develop and nurture networks of community members, academics, stakeholders and service providers in pursuing research excellence in the field of digital, media and cultures

Working with the Digital Catapult Centre Brighton to support Innovation, SMEs and start ups

The Centre for Digital Media Cultures is working closely with the Digital Catapult Centre Brighton (DCCB), specifically around innovation and data, the immersive Lab (VR/AR) and the 5G testbed, as well as start-up and SME support.

DCCB is funded by Innovate UK and enables the conversion of university-led R&D into commercial market opportunities, prototyped by small companies in the Creative Digital & IT sector. The University of Brighton is one of two delivery partners in the DCCB, alongside Wired Sussex. Centre member Karen Cham, Professor of Digital Transformation Design, is the lead academic.

The Centre of Digital Media Culture is involved in delivering the DCCB’s range of innovative projects that are designed to support start-ups and SMEs. These projects include the Immersive Lab, which provides businesses with support accessing and working with state-of-the-art VR/AR facilities, and the 5G testbed, which enables SMEs to generate use cases that benefit from 5G connectivity. The approach has a strong commitment to human centred design for IoT. The DCCB also engages with projects that demonstrate innovative applications of location-based data, an approach defined as the ‘Internet of Place’.

Working with the Global Connecting Cities Network to Connect Remote Audiences Through Art

The Centre for Digital Media Cultures works with ‘Connecting Cities’, worldwide network opposing the commercial use of media facades by utilising them as platforms for distribution of artistic and social content. Centre members Charlotte Gould and Professor Paul Sermon contribution 'Peoples Screen' offers people in two different places the opportunity to co-create coincidental encounters and spontaneous interactions between these two places. The installation adopts a playful and open approach to public urban video screens to manifest a truly interactive ‘Peoples Screen’. People in Guangzhou / China and in Perth / Australia are brought into exchange through an artistic realtime performance on public screens.

Inspired in part by 3D anamorphic street art and computer games, the motivation behind this project also comes from the historic films of Lumière contemporaries Mitchell and Kenyon, whose films of Edwardian public crowds in the 1900’s present a striking similarity to the way audiences react and respond in Sermon and Gould’s telematic urban screen interventions.

Working with the European Network on Integrating Vision and Language to bring together Computer Vision (CV) and Natural Language Processing (NLP)

The Centre for Digital Media Cultures contributes Natural Language Processing expertise to COST Action IC1307, the European Network on Integrating Vision and Language (iV&L Net). This network combines Computer Vision and Language Processing For Advanced Search, Retrieval, Annotation and Description of Visual Data. It brings together two previously unconnected research communities, Computer Vision (CV) and Natural Language Processing (NLP).

Creating a lasting interdisciplinary research community situated at the nexus between language processing and computer vision is hugely important because of the explosive growth of visual and textual data (both on the World Wide Web and held in private repositories by diverse institutions and companies). Dr Anya Belz, Associate Professor contributes her expertise on formal models of natural language, computational learning, natural language processing and data analytics.

Working with the European COST Action on Ageism to explore digital and data exclusion of older people

The collaboration between the Centre for Digital Media Cultures and a European research network on Ageism (COST Action IS1402) focusses on how digital media technologies and age relations are part of complex sets of relations of power that shape a person’s experience over time, together with other social markers of difference, including gender, race and class. This research takes a digital perspective to exploring the negative consequences associated with ageism at the individual, familial, and societal levels. This provides a data/digital approach to challenging the practice of ageism, aiming to allow older people to realise their full potential.

Working with an arts and cultural agency to explore innovations in AR/VR in relation to storytelling

Working in collaboration with Lighthouse, an internationally renowned arts and cultural agency with a strong digital focus, the Centre for Digital Media Cultures explores innovations in AR/VR in relation to storytelling. The joint Reframed project for example, brought “together storytelling and technological pioneers from the converging worlds of film, gaming and contemporary arts and media”. This included a mix of workshops, mentoring from industry experts and space for testing new technologies, providing a collaborative context.

Centre member Helen Kennedy contributes her expertise on immersive technologies, games and creative industries. Lighthouse also hosts a wide range of other activities such as exhibitions, events and workshops in collaboration with University of Brighton’s researchers.

Innovating with mobile health technology to improve HIV care

The Centre for Digital Media Cultures is home to the Horizon 2020 funded EmERGE project led by Brighton and Sussex University Hospital Trust. Over the past five years, the EmERGE project has co-designed, developed, implemented and is currently commercialising an mHealth platform to support HIV care in five European countries. Centre Director Dr Mary Darking is the project lead for innovation and exploitation and is supporting the development of a new digital company, EmERGE mHealth Ltd. which will provide the platform to HIV clinics on a not-for-profit basis after the project ends. The EmERGE platform provides people living with HIV with a mobile phone application linked directly to their medical records providing accurate, up-to-date information on results, medications and appointments. A clinician-facing virtual clinic ensures all information sent to the app has been reviewed prior to release. The platform has been codesigned by the University of Brighton and the European Aids Treatment Group as part of a sociotechnical evaluation led by Centre member Professor Flis Henwood, supported by Dr Mary Darking and Dr Ben Marent.

More partners and collaborators

Association of Internet Researcher (AoIR) - via Aristea Fotopoulou
Bournemouth University Civic Media research lab via Aristea Fotopoulou.
Brighton Digital Catapult Centre - via Karen Cham. Organization that encourages innovation and value from realtime and location-based data.
Brighton Digital Festival – via Helen Kennedy.
Brighton and Hove City Council – Transport and Public Health - via Frauke Behrendt
Brighton and Hove Clinical Commissioning Group – via Frauke Behrendt
Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust (Bsuht), UK - via Flis Henwood and Mary Darking. Project
EmERGE: MHealth and self-management in HIV care.
Brocher Foundation, Geneva - via Aristea Fotopoulou.
Concordia University, Canada - via Maria Sourbati. Project ACT (Ageing + Communication + Technology). via Helen Kennedy - partner institution in REFIG international project leads Prof Mia Consalvo & Prof Bart SImon
Connecting Cities - via Charlotte Gould. Worldwide network opposing the commercial use of media facades by utilising them as platforms for distribution of artistic and social content.
COST Action IS1402. Ageism: An international, multidisciplinary perspective - via Maria Sourbati and
COST Action IC1307 European Network on Integrating Vision and Language - via Anya Belz .
Creative Europe, funders of Live Cinema in Europe project via Helen Kennedy
European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG) (Brussels) - via Mary Darking and Flis Henwood. Project EmERGE: mHealth and self-management in HIV care.
European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) - via Aristea Fotopoulou and Patricia Prieto-Blanco.
European Network on Integrating Vision and Language (iV&L Net) - via Anya Belz.
Fundacio Privada Clinic Per A La Recerca Biomedica (Fcrb), Spain - via Flis Henwood. Project EmERGE: self-management of HIV in patients with stable disease.
FEMBOT Collective - via Aristea Fotopoulou
Gatwick Airports - project DRIVA via Karen Cham. Overcoming barriers to collaborative R&D.
Global Mission of Art - curatorial platform that empowers artists willing to collaborate and create art to change today’s society.
Goldsmiths, University of London, via Aristea Fotopoulou. Project Storycircle.
Google’s Women Tech Makers - via Karen Cham who is an ambassador for Women in Games.
HYSTERIA - international radical feminist collective composed of artists, activists and academics. It produces a periodical plus web presence.
Institute for Development Studies (IDS) - via Frauke Behrendt and Paul Sermon.
International Communication Association (ICA) - via Aristea Fotopoulou
King’s College London, partners in Creative Europe Film Audience development project (with Live Cinema UK). Partners in REFIG - Women in VR project led by Dr Sarah Atkinson via Helen Kennedy
Klinica Za Infektivne Bolesti Dr. Fran Mihaljevic, Croatia - via Flis Henwood. Project EmERGE: self-management of HIV in patients with stable disease.
Lighthouse Arts, Brighton, Internationally renowned digital arts curator and commissioner, run two significant projects in which we are collaborators: Guiding Lights (talent development film making) and REFRAMED-(exploring innovations in AR/VR in relation to storytelling) via Helen Kennedy
Live Cinema UK - via Helen Kennedy. UK only organisation focused on bringing artists, exhibitors, distributors and producers closer together.
London School of Economics, via Aristea Fotopoulou and Frauke Behrendt
Maynooth University, Republic of Ireland - via Evans Leighton. Research collaboration. and via Helen Kennedy - International Project Partner (Aphra Kerr) REFIG - Games Industry intervention strand.
Mhealth Futures Ltd (Mhf), UK - via Flis Henwood. Project EmERGE: self-management of HIV in patients with stable disease.
MIT University, Professor TL Taylor, REFIG culture lead and Helen Kennedy collaborator. MIT Civic Media Lab, via Aristea Fotopoulou.
Npms-Hhc Cic (Npsm), UK - via Flis Henwood. Project EmERGE: self-management of HIV in patients with stable disease.
Podmecids Limited (POD), UK - via Flis Henwood. Project EmERGE: self-management of HIV in patients with stable disease.
Postal-Collage-Project, Berkeley, US - worldwide artists initiative.
Prins Leopold Instituut voor Tropishe Geneeskunde (ITM), Belgium - via Flis Henwood. Project EmERGE: self-management of HIV in patients with stable disease.
QueenSpark Books - via Marcus Winter. Local charity.
Qatar University, College of Business and Economics, Doha, Qatar - via Sanaz Fallahkhair
ReFiG - via Helen Kennedy. International Research collaboration, funded by SSHRCC involving more than 20 university, practitioner and stakeholder partners related to transformation in the games industry, games culture and games education.
Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) - via Aristea Fotopoulou
Theatrum Mundi - via Frauke Behrendt. Professional network of urbanists and artists.
Transport Research Lab - via Frauke Behrendt.
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain - via Flis Henwood. Project EmERGE: self-management of HIV in patients with stable disease.
University of California, Santa Cruz - via Aristea Fotopoulou. Science and Justice Research Center Visiting Fellow.
University of Portsmouth, School of Computing, UK, via Sanaz Fallahkhair
University of Sao Paulo, Brasil - via Lyn Pemberton and Sanaz Fallahkhair. Research collaboration.
University of Sussex, UK - via Flis Henwood. Project EmERGE: self-management of HIV in patients with stable disease. via Aristea Fotopoulou, project EPINET. via Frauke Behrendt: Humanities Lab.
Wired Sussex, via Karen Cham
Women in Games, via Helen Kennedy
York University, Canada, Professor Jen Jenson REFIG overall lead - collaborators since 2005, via Helen Kennedy