The BFI National Lottery Innovation Challenge Fund is awarding £350,000 to Goldsmiths, University of London, to deliver ACES: AI, Carbon, Equity, Skills – a programme seeking to support Equitable Futures in Screen.
“ACES is an ambitious project that will bring together leading expert partners from across the screen sector and academia,” the BFI said.
“Together they will seek to 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, ACES 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 to deliver ACES include University of Edinburgh and Loughborough University with expert not-for-profits Julie’s Bicycle and Sunderland Software City, as well as 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.”
Professor Jonathan Freeman, professor of psychology and academic lead, knowledge exchange, and director at both CoSTAR Foresight and i2 Media Research at Goldsmiths, University of London, said: “My team focus in depth on mapping the future of workflows, markets, technologies and audience impacts across the creative industries, with a deep focus on the screen, games and performance sectors.
“To us it is imperative that we focus on enabling the sector to imagine and realise positive futures – an AI that is supportive and not threatening to creatives, workplaces that are accessible to all, and leadership that sets and meets new norms on decarbonisation. Our new ACES project speaks directly to this positive goal.
“The challenges we will address were identified through our collective Foresight Lab activities over 2024-2025, and it is brilliant to have the resource from the BFI Challenge Fund to support our partners in addressing the challenges with us.”
More information is available on the BFI website.
