A report released this week outlines recommendations for strengthening the UK's position in creative technology (CreaTech). The Coronation Challenge CreaTech Report, produced by the Royal Anniversary Trust in partnership with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, draws on expertise from leading institutions including the University of Glasgow.

The report highlights five strategic recommendations aimed at fostering innovation and growth in the creative technology sector. These policy recommendations include education reform to build a robust skills pipeline, creating a five-year plan to substantially increase the level of public investment in CreaTech research and development whilst developing a collaborative hub which would strengthen connections between businesses, educational institutions and technology developers.

Further recommendations involve improving access to certain tax relief and bridging the gap in funding for CreaTech businesses wishing to grow.

In 2023, the University was awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize – the highest national honour in education – for its research and scholarship in Robert Burns studies.

Following this award, Glasgow was invited to join fellow awardees to participate in the year-long Coronation Challenge set by the Royal Anniversary Trust. Among the Glasgow academics who participated were the College of Arts & Humanities' Dr Pauline Mackay, Director of the Centre for Robert Burns Studies and a Co-investigator on the Museums in the Metaverse project and Professor Nick Fells, Professor of Sonic Practice.  

Among the report's case studies in Museums in the Metaverse project. The MiM project is aiming to develop a ground-breaking two-sided Extended Reality (XR) Culture and Heritage platform. The platform’s ambition is to empower online visitors to explore diverse cultural assets in engaging new ways, enable curators to create new content and tell new stories with heritage collections and explore models of use to support sustainable economic and cultural growth 

The Challenge is a research initiative commissioned by the UK Parliament Culture, Media and Sport Commons Select Committee as part of the 2023 Sector Vision initiative, an investment which aims to drive growth in the creative industries using technology. This has brought about a term broadly referred to as CreaTech which characterises the role of technology driven innovation in the creative industries.

The CreaTech report is the outcome of this Challenge. The findings from the report emphasise that CreaTech would thrive in an environment which supporting the fusion of creativity and technology which would not only aid the growth of the UK’s creative sector but would also provide an opportunity for the country to become a global leader in CreaTech, developing an multi-disciplinary workforce, skilled in a range of creative and technical disciplines.

First published: 12 February 2025

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