3: Infrastructure

We need an ecosystem, and we need to be joined up and stop talking to ourselves. R&D needs to involve multiple partners, and nourishment of both those who enable and undertake the R&D, and [be] agnostic in terms of scale, form and time-frame.

- Sarah Ellis, Director of Digital Development, Royal Shakespeare Company

Most arts organisations... whether they're for profit or not-for-profit... will undertake R&D activities. They do it in order to discover and generate new thinking, not new plays or new pieces of work, but actually new ways of creating those new things, which are indeed innovations.

- Graham Hitchen, Loughborough University & CoSTAR Foresight Lab

The true economic and innovation impacts of Creative R&D can only be fully understood when framed as 𝖎 ecosystemic phenomena. While art and advanced technologies (AxAT) practices are the central agents of Creative R&D, the broader organisational ecosystem within which they are embedded influences their systemic affordances, reach and sustainability. This chapter maps out the organisational forms and functions that are contributing to the development of this inherently cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral AxAT ecosystem from the perspective of the cultural sector. While the contributions of technology and academia are well-documented and acknowledged, there remains a lack of nuanced understanding of the ways in which the organisations in the cultural sector plug into the ecosystem. These organisations undertake activities that include different forms of research, incubation, production and prototyping, network building, skills development, scaling and civic engagement. These manifest as support structures for AxAT practitioner activities - which may or may not be affiliated with an organisational form themselves (e.g. a studio) - in addition to the development of organisational AxAT practice in its own right.

Critically, the AxAT organisational ecosystem has the potential to offer an inclusive and interoperable infrastructure 𝖎 for hosting and advancing Creative R&D.

As discussed in Chapter 1, Creative R&D is not confined to any single sector or field. One of its defining characteristics is the fact that its activity takes place across 𝖎 multiple contexts (e.g., artist studios, university labs, arts institutions, technology start-ups), and domains (e.g., technology, academia and culture). While R&D is well-established as a category in technology and academia, technology-focused Creative R&D has not been adequately conceptualised in the cultural sector.¹ In addition, the language of 'R&D' is generally alien to the cultural sector, which means that AxAT work struggles to receive appropriate acknowledgement inside and outside the sector. This in turn makes it difficult to track and grasp its true societal and economic value 𝖛.

Nevertheless, parts of the cultural sector have leveraged their unique positioning at the intersection of public engagement, creative practice, and knowledge production, and are increasingly emerging as vital connective 𝖎 hubs within the AxAT ecosystem. Hosting in this context extends beyond traditional models of physical space provision and curatorial support to instead encompass the development of new technical infrastructure, research frameworks, and collaborative networks. These expansive hosting practices are opening up possibilities for more sustained engagement with technological development that transcends the limitations of project-based approaches or those that emphasise digital transformation, enabling longer developmental arcs and more profound systemic interventions.

Since hosting AxAT constitutes such a critical contribution to Creative R&D and innovation ecosystems, understanding this phenomenon in greater detail is an essential starting point for devising better tailored metrics frameworks, developmental strategies and policies. Below we present an overview of the types of cultural organisations that host AxAT and which are engaged in Creative R&D, describing their key features and capabilities, some of which are well-established and others emergent 𝖊. We describe the type of Creative R&D work these organisations undertake, and how it in turn plugs into broader innovation ecosystems. We then map current junctures between cultural organisations and technology, academia and policy, pointing to gaps and opportunities.

Within established cultural organisations, specialised departments and spin-outs have emerged as strategic responses to the growing importance of advanced technologies in cultural production and experience. These initiatives typically evolve from specific institutional needs or artistic explorations before developing into more formalised structures with dedicated resources and personnel.

For instance, for The Royal Shakespeare Company, what began with experimental productions such as The Tempest (2016), which incorporated live motion capture to create a digital character in real-time, has evolved into a sustained programme of R&D exploring the future of live performance. In 2021, the RSC became the first performing arts institution to achieve Independent Research Organisation status which has supported the growth of this approach, and now includes the development of the Future of Performance Institute, an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded four-year project, currently in its feasibility determining phase, alongside the RSC Interdisciplinary Fellowships and partnerships with technology companies including Epic Games and Philips. The RSC maintains specialist facilities for prototyping new performance technologies, and disseminates insights through publications, workshops, and industry events. This evolution represents a deliberate institutional strategy to translate artistic explorations into broader technological innovation with applications beyond performing arts contexts.

Similarly, Serpentine Arts Technologies has developed from Serpentine's early engagements with digital art into a dedicated programme that commissions artists working with emerging technologies. Today, in addition to commissioning and producing large-scale AxAT projects, it hosts Ph.D.s, conducts applied research through its R&D platform, and builds strategic relationships 𝖎 across technology, policy, and academic sectors (as well as publishing this annual strategic briefing). Unlike traditional curatorial departments focused primarily on exhibition-making, Serpentine Arts Technologies functions as a hub that impacts the institution's overall strategic direction while developing specialised technological capabilities that complement the gallery's core visual arts expertise.

NEW INC at the New Museum offers a somewhat different organisational model, operating as a cultural incubator that hosts a curated community of creative practitioners. By providing workspace, professional development resources, and community programming, NEW INC creates an environment where cultural innovation can develop alongside more commercially-oriented creative technology ventures. This hybrid approach allows the New Museum to support experimental practices that might be too speculative for commercial incubators while creating pathways for Creative R&D to inform product development and entrepreneurial activity. NEW INC has also spawned other specialist organisations, such as the dedicated production space Onassis ONX in partnership with the Onassis Foundation, which provides access to facilities and expertise for practitioners working with technologies.

We are operating with the goal of thinking about full stack production because that's where we encounter a lot of issues in terms of our rights, our value and our resources.

- Jesse McKee, Head of Digital Strategy, 221a

The Node Library at 221A in Vancouver represents a distinctive departmental spin-out model evolving from a traditional artist-run centre, where digital infrastructure activities developed from the organisation's core cultural infrastructure mission into specialised technological capabilities. The Node Library offers a dedicated digital infrastructure, developing community-governed mechanisms, policy frameworks, and commercialisation pathways for the emerging creative industries’ data landscape. This model emerged from earlier R&D fellowships focused on digital infrastructures, urban planning and technological governance, evolving into a venture-oriented approach that bridges cultural and technological sectors through practical applications for cultural data rights and community governance of digital assets.

The Design Museum's Future Observatory represents yet another variation, functioning as a research institute dedicated to the relationship between design and climate change. The Design Museum, like the RSC, also achieved Independent Research Organisation status in 2024, and through Future Observatory it combines traditional museum activities such as exhibitions and publications with more research-oriented approaches, ranging from commissioning speculative design projects, developing policy papers and large-scale cross-sector research projects as well as convening fora where designers, scientists, policymakers, and industry representatives can collaboratively address environmental challenges. This model positions the museum not merely as a presenter of completed design works but as an active participant in shaping how design practice responds 𝖗 to planetary emergencies.

Somerset House Studios has become the innovation engine for Somerset House, supporting cross art-form practices and partnerships with over 60 artists-in-residence including a number of AxAT artists including Libby Heaney, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Gary Zhexi Zhang, Keiken, and Lawrence Lek, and a range of opportunities such as the Creative Technologies Fellowship. Meanwhile, Barbican Immersive builds on the legacy of the Barbican as a pluralistic arts centre to support artists working with immersive technologies while producing large-scale international touring exhibitions. The Digital Programme at The Photographers' Gallery emerges from the deep knowledge and medium specificity of the organisation. It serves as a complement to its exhibition activity by exploring the impact of digital technologies on the way we interact with images, through research conducted as part of institutionally hosted Ph.D. programmes and development of resources such as Unthinking Photography. SONAR+D leverages the festival's reputation to explore how emerging technologies are reshaping the creative industries and cultural production within and beyond the music industry. MoMA R&D draws on the museum's art historical expertise and cultural authority to investigate how societal changes, including technological development, might transform the museum's relationship to its publics.

These departmental and spin-out structures benefit from their parent organisations' accumulated knowledge, public trust, 𝖛 and sectoral influence. Their institutional backing enables them to undertake speculative, longer-term developmental projects that may be prohibitively risky for smaller entities, and helps translate experimental approaches into sector-wide practices. Perhaps most significantly, these structures serve as crucial interfaces 𝖎 between the cultural sector and other domains by developing capacities that allow them to translate between different value 𝖛 systems, methodologies, and goals, enabling them to host cross-sectoral collaborations.

It's all about finding allies in [technology and scientific research] - individuals who understand the value of being part of artistic projects. In antidisciplinary creation, the richness comes from these human connections, where knowledge is shared and reimagined across fields. It's less about borrowing tools and more about collaborating with those willing to step into unfamiliar creative terrain, where art, science, and technology can resonate rather than compete.

- Andrea Faroppa, Head of Sónar+D and Strategic Projects, Sónar

ACMI X is a creative residency that serves to fill a gap for professional makers of all screen sector areas including their ancillary support services. This community now lives in the museum and we've expanded the offer of the museum's facilities, so now the visible outcome of the experimentation takes place in public. It's not a residency; it's a living ecosystem in a museum infrastructure.

- Keri Elmsly, Executive Director of Programming, ACMI

Dedicated AxAT cultural entities are organisations whose core mission encompasses engagement with technological conditions. While they vary in scale and focus, these organisations have integrated technological engagement into their founding principles and operational approaches, allowing them to develop specialised capabilities and perspectives on the relationship between technology and their particular cultural domains.

The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) exemplifies this approach. While its primary mission centres on screen culture in all its forms, ACMI has developed specialised capabilities for preserving and presenting digital media, for creating interactive exhibitions that explore technological impacts on cinema and gaming, and for supporting creative practitioners working with screen-based technologies. ACMI X is a hub for creative practitioners, start-ups and businesses from across the creative industries which is located within the museum. It also supports residences and academic partnerships. This integration of technological concerns with moving image expertise allows ACMI to track how digital transformations are reshaping cinematic and gaming experiences while simultaneously developing new approaches to collecting, preserving, and interpreting these evolving forms.

Watershed's Pervasive Media Studio (PM Studio) in Bristol is housed within the UK's first 'Media Centre' which opened in 1982 and is dedicated to film, media and digital technologies.² It has multiple roles in terms of 'creative technology' with significant partnerships with the university sector, including leading large-scale research projects with academic funding, and supporting early-stage business development. This has led to demonstrable impact on broader innovation ecosystems in the UK and beyond. PM Studio are deeply involved with the academic field and demonstrate the potential of Creative R&D as civic infrastructure as well as showing the potential of institutions to prototype new formats for 𝖗 responding to societal shifts 𝖊.

FACT Liverpool takes a different approach as an art centre that focuses on art, film and creative technology with a broader civic mission around technological literacy and community engagement. Beyond its exhibition programme, FACT operates Studio/Lab, which provides facilities, mentorship and community, along with a residency programme that supports artists developing experimental work using new technical tools. Further, FACT offers an extensive learning programme that provides technical skills development for artists and local communities. FACT also develops art and research projects with Liverpool John Moores University with a civic focus that includes a long-term engagement with the criminal justice system.

Other organisations emphasise different combinations of technological engagement and cultural focus. Furtherfield pairs its technological interests with a strong civic and community orientation, using digital platforms and networked practices to explore alternative economic models and collective creativity. ZKM Centre for Art and Media in Karlsruhe approaches technology through a media archaeological lens, combining exhibition-making with substantial research, preservation, and educational activities around both historical and contemporary media technologies. HEK (House of Electronic Arts) in Basel focuses on the creative and critical discourse associated with emerging technologies while experimenting with new approaches to engaging audiences such as its tokenised membership platform, Friends of HEK.

Dedicated science museums and galleries also maintain a specific role in the context of GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) organisations with a remit to sharing knowledge on scientific innovation which is, increasingly, in dialogue with technological innovation through a collecting and/or knowledge sharing approach. Organisations like Science Gallery London and the Francis Crick Institute utilise interdisciplinary cultural collaborations. Science Gallery London focuses on art, science and health, building dialogue and collaborations between communities of artists, academics, students, young people, activists, local organisations, while the Francis Crick Institute, Europe's biggest biomedical research facility, develops exhibitions and projects in dialogue with artists and researchers in order to engage audiences in their innovative research and why it matters to society. In addition, collecting museums such as the Medical Museion at the University of Copenhagen and the Science Museum, London, combine academic inquiry around the medical humanities alongside an object collection, seeking to preserve and share stories about scientific, technological and medical innovation with the public.

These specialised organisations have not so much designed themselves specifically for scientific and technological engagement as they have recognised technology as a fundamental condition that intersects with their core cultural concerns. Eyebeam's focus on supporting artists through residencies and public programmes is inseparable from its recognition of how profoundly technological changes are reshaping artistic practice. Gray Area's educational programmes and festival are grounded in an understanding that technological literacy has become essential for meaningful civic participation.

The distinctive missions of these dedicated entities allow them to develop specialised approaches and capabilities that respond 𝖗 to the particular intersection of technology with their area of focus. The following are just a few examples of how this dynamic plays out. Mediale has developed an organisational structure that draws on their distinct capabilities as executive producers with their expertise in developing experiences outside of traditional gallery environments, for example in festivals and public spaces. Rhizome has pioneered approaches to web archiving that preserve digital culture. Arebyte is an organisation dedicated to supporting emerging artists, providing skills development workshops and cultural engagement with technologies. Abandon Normal Devices has created formats for site-specific technological engagement that respond to particular geographic and social contexts. These specialised capabilities often develop in response to specific needs that mainstream cultural institutions are not equipped to address, filling crucial gaps in the broader cultural infrastructure.

The emergence of new organisational models like are.na and Restless Egg represent a contemporary evolution of a specialist AxAT organisation. are.na, for example, operates as a visual knowledge platform that blends aspects of a social network, research tool, and collaborative archive. Unlike conventional social media platforms, are.na is focused on knowledge creation rather than content consumption. Its design philosophy deliberately rejects advertising-based business models in favour of subscription support, allowing it to prioritise thoughtful engagement and community development over engagement metrics.

Restless Egg builds on the venture capital funding model with a focus on supporting 'artist-founders' who are developing new technology products and services that have been challenging to fund through either traditional cultural funding or classic start-up routes. Examples of current projects being incubated include Blue Leaf Systems, a solution for AI-driven 3D rendering and compositing developed by Laser Days, and a creative platform solution for utilising multiple AI tools for media production workflows by Fuser Studio.

Our strength is that we exist in a para-institutional space which can be a generative ground for different approaches to tools and technologies by different communities because this kind of research has now moved from the academy to industry with primarily a commercial goal.

- Lina Martin-Chan, Director, Trust

At the most fluid edge are the self-organised and grassroots initiatives that sometimes operate through informal or decentralised coordination rather than formal institutional structures. These initiatives often arise from informal collectives, practitioner networks, and cross-disciplinary communities that assemble around shared interests in exploring emerging technologies that bring fresh perspectives. They frequently reverse the typical pattern of cultural institutions adopting new technologies, instead emerging from within communities of practice.

Trust in Berlin operates as a self-organised community that brings together artists, designers, theorists, and technologists to explore emerging technologies through collaborative projects, reading groups, and public events. Trust maintains both physical and digital infrastructures for community building: its co-working space in Berlin provides a physical hub where members can collaborate on projects and host informal gatherings, while its Discord server functions as an active digital forum for ongoing conversations, resource sharing, and remote collaboration. Trust maintains an agile approach that allows it to respond rapidly to shifting community interests. Importantly, Trust also functions as an incubator for new organisational entities that emerge 𝖊 from its community networks.

By providing a low-stakes environment where practitioners can experiment with collaborative models before formalising them into distinct organisational structures, Trust enables the proliferation of specialised initiatives that might otherwise struggle to find institutional support in their earliest stages. Notable examples include Other Internet, which evolved from a Trust research residency into a leading Web3/crypto research firm securing $1M from Uniswap; Moving Castles, which developed through Trust's virtual residency into an on-chain game studio with three-year funding; Terra0, which transformed from a 2018 Trust residency into a DAO-governed forest project with major foundation support; and 0xSalon, a regular series shaping critical tech discourse. Trust has also incubated tools like Bubble, a community archiving system later forked by Metalabel, and Half-Earth Socialism, a highly-rated Steam game.

Trust has always been a space that hosts other organisations, supports projects as well as producing its own research.

- Lina Martin-Chan, Director, Trust

Open-source communities around creative tools such as Processing and p5.js represent another variation of grassroots organisation. These communities maintain and develop technological resources that support creative coding practices through distributed volunteer contributions, educational resources, and regular community events. They typically operate without centralised institutional structures, instead coordinating through digital platforms, contributor guidelines, and community governance processes. This distributed model enables them to leverage diverse expertise from around the world while maintaining low barriers to participation.

More recently, blockchain-based organisational forms, e.g., artist DAOs have emerged as new approaches to collective creative production. These organisations use smart contracts and token-based governance to coordinate activities, pool resources, and make collective decisions about artistic and technological development. For instance, Holly Herndon's and Mat Dryhurst Studios's Holly+ project exemplifies this model by creating a DAO that governs the use of Herndon's AI voice model, allowing community members to vote on approved usages while sharing in any revenue generated from the technology.

The often distributed nature of these grassroots initiatives - frequently with participants from multiple professional contexts contributing - allows them to rapidly incorporate diverse technical skills and perspectives. These initiatives serve as vital testing grounds for new forms of creative production, ownership, and distribution. The open-source communities around creative coding tools have pioneered models for the distributed maintenance of technological resources and artist collectives working with blockchain have explored new approaches to collective ownership and decision-making. The technical sophistication within these communities creates unique capabilities for innovation where culture and technology meet.

Creative R&D within AxAT organisations functions as a distinct adaptability 𝖗 engine that enables both individual institutions and the cultural sector at large to navigate technological change through experimental practice. Unlike conventional 'digital transformation' - which typically focuses on integrating existing technological products and services into organisational operations - Creative R&D generates innovation through exploratory processes that often produce unexpected outcomes 𝖊 and novel approaches.

This distinction between 'digital transformation' and Creative R&D is crucial; where digital transformation might involve implementing a new ticketing system or digitising collections, Creative R&D engages with emerging technologies as materials for experimentation, allowing organisations to develop new capabilities, methodologies, and even missions in response to technological change 𝖊. Rather than simply adopting tools developed elsewhere, these organisations become active participants in shaping how technologies evolve and how they might serve cultural purposes.

ACMI's development of the Lens exemplifies this approach. Beginning as an experimental exploration of how computer vision and AI might enhance visitor experiences, the Lens evolved into a sophisticated personalised companion that uses facial recognition to create customised journeys through the museum's exhibitions. Visitors can collect digital objects throughout their visit, with the system remembering their interests and creating personalised takeaways. This wasn't simply the implementation of an off-the-shelf solution, but rather an iterative R&D process that generated new insights about privacy, personalisation, and the role of AI in cultural experiences. The project has since spawned further experiments with AI-powered search tools that allow visitors to explore ACMI's collection using natural language queries and visual similarity, fundamentally reimagining how audiences might discover, and engage with, moving image culture.

The National Theatre's Immersive Storytelling Studio demonstrates how Creative R&D can transform traditional performance practices. Through experimental projects exploring virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality technologies, the Studio has developed new dramaturgical approaches that extend theatrical storytelling beyond the physical stage. These experiments have generated insights about presence, agency, and audience participation that inform both digital productions and traditional stagecraft. The Studio's development of new tools and methodologies for creating immersive theatre has established the National Theatre as a leader in performance innovation, with their approaches now being adopted by theatre companies internationally.

Serpentine's Choral AI Data 'Trust' Experiment, developed in collaboration with legal scholars and technologists, represents another dimension of Creative R&D. Rather than simply implementing data management systems, this project explores how cultural institutions might pioneer new models for ethical data governance in the age of AI. The experiment involves creating legal and technical frameworks that allow institutions to act as trusted intermediaries between artists, audiences, and AI systems, ensuring that data sharing happens according to community-defined values rather than extractive commercial logics. This R&D process has generated new insights about institutional roles in the AI ecosystem, producing governance models that could reshape how the entire cultural sector approaches data stewardship.³

These examples illustrate how Creative R&D enables what might be called 'anticipatory adaptation' - developing capabilities and approaches before they become necessary, rather than reacting to technological change after it has already transformed the landscape 𝖗. This experimental orientation allows organisations to fail productively 𝖗, learning from unsuccessful experiments in ways that inform future development. It also positions cultural organisations as sites of technological innovation rather than as mere consumers of it, contributing to broader conversations about how emerging technologies should function in society.

Exchange is vital between these different organisational models, enabling the transfer of knowledge, methodologies, and technological approaches across institutional boundaries. These exchanges occur through formal partnerships, staff movements between organisations, shared technological infrastructure, and collaborative projects that bring together different organisational types.

When SONAR+D, for instance, collaborates with grassroots music technology communities, or when the V&A partners with dedicated AxAT organisations like Rhizome on digital preservation initiatives, they create pathways for knowledge exchange that strengthen 𝖗 the broader ecosystem. Similarly, experiments in decentralised governance from artist DAOs inform the development of new curatorial approaches within museums.⁴ Established cultural departments bring institutional resources and sectoral influence; dedicated cultural entities provide specialised capabilities that integrate technological engagement with their particular cultural domains; grassroots initiatives offer rapid experimentation and emerging approaches. Together, they enable cultural organisations to make substantial contributions to the wider Creative R&D and innovation landscape.

By mapping and understanding the roles of these various organisational models within the cultural sector, crucial insights are gained into how diverse approaches to technology incubated within cultural organisations can inform innovation processes in other domains. This ecosystem 𝖎 approach moves beyond treating AxAT as a specialised niche within cultural practice to recognising it as a vital component of broader innovation infrastructure, contributing distinctive methodologies and perspectives to technological development across society.

Every industry has their own R&D and innovation methodology. What doesn't get valued is the way in which methods used in the arts, culture and creative industries can be a catalyst for new ways of thinking and new ideas that push innovation further faster. We need to embed the importance of creativity across all sectors and make sure that it gets recognised and valued appropriately.

- Tonya Nelson, Executive Director, Enterprise & Innovation, Arts Council England

Working with people in a creative space can start this development flywheel that can start to solve problems in so many other sectors because a lot of the people who are really good designers and artists in this space are pathfinders who can really forge new connections. That pathfinding work is so valuable to so many people.

- Jesse McKee, Head of Digital Strategy, 221a

While the organisational models described above demonstrate the diverse ways cultural organisations are building internal Creative R&D capabilities, some of this activity occurs through collaborations with partners beyond the cultural sector, while other activity creates spillover effects 𝖒 that influence innovation activity in adjacent sectors.

Currently, most formal collaborations emerge through ad hoc 𝖊 connections - personal relationships, funding calls, or project-specific needs - rather than through systematic strategies for cross-sector engagement. This informal approach has produced remarkable individual projects, but it may limit the potential for sustained knowledge exchange and cumulative innovation across 𝖎 domains. Strengthening these connections 𝖗 through more intentional frameworks could amplify 𝖒 the transformative potential of Creative R&D, creating durable pathways for collaboration that extend beyond individual projects or funding cycles.

In what follows, we present a landscape mapping of how cultural organisations and other sectors meet in the Creative R&D ecosystem, with a focus on three key domains: civic technology, industry, and academia. Each domain brings distinct capabilities, priorities, and operational cultures that shape the nature of these collaborations, offering both opportunities and challenges for developing more systematic approaches to cross-sector Creative R&D.

We're reflecting on how hard it is to produce R&D at scale while doing the kind of values-led and deeper relationship-forming work that we want to do.

- Jo Lansdowne, Executive Producer, Pervasive Media Studio

An emerging juncture in the Creative R&D ecosystem is where cultural organisations and civic entities converge to develop frameworks for technology that centre public interest 𝖛 concerns. These new types of collaborations leverage complementary capabilities: cultural organisations contribute a platform for interacting with AxAT practices, alongside public engagement expertise, while civic organisations bring policy knowledge, advocacy networks, and alternative governance models.

• The partnership between Serpentine Arts Technologies and RadicalxChange exemplifies this dynamic. The Beyond Cultures of Ownership initiative explores and prototypes new ownership and stewardship models for creative assets, developing both speculative frameworks and prototypes that challenge conventional property regimes.

• 221A's Blockchains & Cultural Padlocks initiative demonstrates how cultural organisations can develop civic technologies directly. The initiative explores how distributed ledger technologies might create new models for cultural property, developing practical prototypes for community-governed digital infrastructure.

• Bristol + Bath Creative R&D, was a programme that brought together the four universities of Bristol and Bath with Watershed and Pervasive Media Studio, who also led the project. The project undertook academic research and enabled the prototyping of products and experiences with a strong focus on inclusivity, access and sustainability for the AxAT ecosystem both locally and internationally such that address wider civic engagement and the impact of AxAT. This resulted in over £20.2m of additional investment, 72 prototypes, 18 new businesses and 82 jobs created.⁵

Alongside formal partnerships, self-organised 𝖊 communities create spaces where alternative technological paradigms can emerge. These communities often emphasise values and methodologies overlooked by commercial development, generating approaches that integrate technical sophistication with critical engagement.

• The creative coding movement exemplifies this approach, with communities using tools such as Processing, p5.js and openFrameworks fundamentally reimagining software development to incorporate aesthetic and ethical dimensions alongside functional ones.

• Civic technology initiatives such as Data for Black Lives approach technology as inherently political and cultural, developing methodologies that foreground questions of justice, representation, and social context.

• Solar Protocol, developed by artist Tega Brain, creative technologist Alex Nathanson, and designer Benedetta Piantella, represents a distributed network of solar-powered servers stewarded by volunteers globally, demonstrating how technical infrastructure can embody environmental and social values through resource-conscious design that dynamically routes traffic based on renewable energy availability and local conditions.

These communities, and even formal partnerships, face significant structural challenges. Operating with limited resources, they struggle to sustain long-term development. Yet despite these constraints, many have demonstrated remarkable resilience 𝖗 and growing influence. The Processing Foundation has sustained development for over two decades, building educational resources and community structures that have introduced hundreds of thousands of people to creative coding practices. Tools developed within these communities have influenced broader software development approaches, gradually shifting industry practices toward greater accessibility and user agency.

Industry-specific R&D is further shaped by sectoral categorisations embedded in national industrial strategies, which often fail to adequately capture the cross-cutting nature of technology innovation. The UK's industrial strategy, for instance, has traditionally separated 'creative industries' from 'technology' sectors, despite increasing convergence 𝖎 between these domains in practice.⁶ This separation is reflected in different funding streams, regulatory approaches, and policy objectives that can create barriers for organisations working at this nexus.

Within the technology industry, Creative R&D activities are often associated with 'design research' or 'innovation labs'. Major technology companies have established dedicated research divisions that explore creative applications of emerging technologies such as Meta Reality Labs and deep tech research units such as Microsoft Research and Google Research. These corporate research initiatives often engage interdisciplinary teams that include artists, designers, and cultural theorists alongside engineers and computer scientists, recognising the value of interdisciplinary approaches to technological development 𝖛.

It was very refreshing as a computer scientist to hear, not the word 'data set', but the word 'archive', meaning that someone needs to constitute that archive. Someone needs to curate it and the archive in itself is a political statement that maybe belongs as a national treasure to a community. There was a whole depth of conversation that was very interesting, that emerged between us and the curators and artists.

- Piotr Mirowski, Staff Research Scientist, Google Deepmind

Corporate research labs tend to engage with AxAT practitioners directly rather than through partnerships with cultural organisations. The knowledge and the technologies that these contexts produce have many layers of cultural implication, ranging from influencing contemporary culture in the broadest sense of the word to impacting the way that culture is produced and experienced. For example, Google DeepMind's research on artificial intelligence not only dramatically influences scientific discovery but also shapes the fundamental questions that are being asked in contemporary culture about agency, about what constitutes intelligence, and how to balance the quest for innovation with other concerns, such as those related to the environment. Many of these ideas play out through projects hosted by cultural organisations, feeding back into broader cultural attitudes and informing AxAT practices that then feed into corporate contexts.

Meanwhile, for decades Adobe Research has directly shaped how creative practitioners work, influencing production pipelines and establishing technical possibilities and constraints through such products as Adobe Creative Suite. Similarly, companies focused on XR technologies, such as Meta and Apple, conduct R&D that defines the parameters for how immersive experiences are deployed in cultural contexts. As discussed in the preceding chapter, AxAT practitioners often serve the role of beta users; this role in recent years has expanded to cultural organisations.

The technology sector's approach to Creative R&D typically prioritises applications that align with commercial objectives, potentially limiting more speculative or critical explorations. While technology companies may invest significantly in creative research, the knowledge generated is often proprietary. Additionally, the sector's metrics for success tend to emphasise technological advancement and marketability over cultural significance or 𝖛 social impact, creating tensions when collaborating with cultural and academic partners operating under different value systems.

Most of the support we receive through corporations comes through the marketing departments. I wonder how our partnerships would shift if the support came from the R&D departments of these companies because then the collaboration is framed in not just storytelling, but also mutual investment in collective learning.

- Salome Asega, Director, New INC

Partnerships between established cultural organisations and technology companies, therefore, often follow established sponsorship models, where technology companies provide funding, resources, or platforms in exchange for brand association, access to creative practitioners, and cultural content, while cultural organisations receive financial support and technological capabilities.⁷ This model frequently extends to direct technology provision. Projects such as Google Arts & Culture's digitisation initiatives, and partnerships between major tech companies and institutions including the V&A, Tate and Louvre, demonstrate how cultural organisations can access advanced tools and global distribution platforms. These collaborations offer mutual benefits: cultural institutions gain sophisticated digitisation capabilities and expanded audience reach, while tech companies acquire rich content libraries and cultural credibility.

Smaller-scale commercial entities including start-ups and SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises) are also important actors in the Creative R&D ecosystem. These entities are often geared towards developing products in the 'creative technologies' category. For example:

• Moth Quantum - described as the world's first quantum-to-consumer (Q2C) technology company - develops accessible tools and platforms that enable artists and musicians to experiment with quantum computing principles, translating complex quantum phenomena into creative workflows and aesthetic experiences.

• Commercial media studios such as Nexus Studios and PRELOADED operate as hybrid entities that combine commercial viability with experimental practice, developing cutting-edge projects that bridge entertainment, art, and emerging technologies while maintaining sustainable business models that support ongoing R&D.

• Alias AI provides artists with infrastructure to train custom AI models while addressing critical questions of provenance and value through the integrated legal certification of generated artworks and blockchain-based monetisation systems, demonstrating how technical tools can embed ethical and economic frameworks.

Arrangements with tech sector actors of different scales present both opportunities and challenges for the cultural sector. While they provide access to resources and technical capabilities, they can also create dependencies on proprietary systems and limit cultural organisations' agency in shaping their own Creative R&D. The cultural sector's role often centres on content provision and user feedback rather than collaborative technology and systems design, which decreases the capacity to build on these projects in a durable way.

There is, however, ample appetite in cultural organisations to explore alternative possibilities. The groundwork for more in-depth engagements has been laid: cultural organisations working with AxAT will often have teams and broader collaborator networks that possess unique literacies and know-how across multiple domains, as well as extensive experience working in cross-disciplinary teams as part of experimental and agile projects. Technology companies typically operate on accelerated development timelines while meaningful cultural engagement often requires extended ones, making collaborations with cultural organisations a valuable ideation space to test seemingly out of scope scenarios that may reveal unexpected original contributions.⁸ This model positions cultural organisations not merely as venues for showcasing technological applications but as a partner who can accommodate the uncertainties of experimental practice.⁹

We must better demonstrate how this work adds value to the UK's research, development and innovation (RDI) ecosystem through a multi-capital lens. AI exemplifies this challenge - while the UK aims for global leadership in scientific and technical research, we equally need to focus on responsible, ethical implementation that benefits all citizens equitably. Separating technical advancement from human-centred considerations is counterproductive. The challenge lies in articulating this integrated approach effectively.

- Tom Crick, Chief Scientific Adviser, Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Universities represent crucial sites for Creative R&D activities, though they typically operate under frameworks that privilege traditional academic outputs. Research in UK universities is primarily evaluated through the Research Excellence Framework (REF), which has gradually expanded to recognise practice-based research and technological development but still struggles to fully account for cross-disciplinary work that spans artistic and technological domains. Universities often house specialised centres and labs where Creative R&D flourishes - such as the Creative Computing Institute at University of the Arts London, Culture Lab at Newcastle University and the New Real at Edinburgh Futures Institute - but these activities frequently occur at the margins of institutional structures designed primarily for conventional disciplinary research.

The university sector has developed distinct terminologies and methodologies for Creative R&D activities, including 'practice-based research', 'practice-led research', and 'research through design'. These approaches have generated valuable insights and innovations, but they remain inconsistently integrated with broader innovation ecosystems beyond academia. Despite their significant contributions to creative and technological development, university-based Creative R&D initiatives often face challenges in securing sustained funding and establishing pathways for wider impact beyond academic publications and exhibitions.¹⁰

For scientific research, established commercialisation channels exist through technology transfer offices, intellectual property management, and spinout mechanisms that help translate academic findings into market applications. Universities have developed sophisticated infrastructures to support this process, including innovation hubs, incubators, and dedicated investment funds. Similar approaches have been tested for creative disciplines, such as Central Saint Martins' Fashion Business Development programme, which provides pathways for fashion design graduates to develop commercial ventures. More recently, in initiatives such as Post Urban Ventures - a venture capital firm applies the spinout model specifically to deep tech including AI, quantum technologies, biotech, AgTech and enterprise saas, supporting startups emerging from academic contexts in UK and Europe.

Despite these developments and their significant contributions to creative and technological advances, university-based Creative R&D initiatives often face challenges in securing sustained funding and establishing pathways for wider impact beyond academic publications and exhibitions. The translation mechanisms for Creative R&D remain less developed and systematised than those for scientific research, with fewer dedicated resources and less institutional expertise in navigating the specific challenges of creative commercialisation and social impact.

Cultural organisations engaged in Creative R&D provide such translation mechanisms through several key points of contact where cultural organisations engaged in AxAT work most actively intersect with academic institutions: exhibition-as-research-platform; educational collaborations and skills development; shared technical infrastructure; and research partnerships.

Cultural exhibitions increasingly function as research platforms where academic questions and methodologies are explored through public presentations. For example:

• ZKM's Open Codes exhibition series, developed in collaboration with academic researchers, used exhibition formats to investigate how code shapes contemporary culture and society.

• Barbican's AI: More than Human exhibition incorporated academic research on the cultural and ethical dimensions of artificial intelligence, using exhibition design to communicate complex technological concepts.

• The members of the Science Gallery Network in various global locations work closely with academic institutions.

These exhibition-as-research models create environments where academic inquiry gains material form and public interface, and cultural presentations gain theoretical depth and methodological rigour.

Cultural organisations and academic institutions develop joint educational initiatives that cultivate capabilities for AxAT practice. Academia has established two formal approaches to artistic research: practice-led research (which contributes to advancing practice itself) and practice-based research (which positions practice as inherently knowledge-producing). These frameworks provide methodological structures that legitimise artistic work within broader research contexts. Recent examples include:

• The Institute of Design Informatics at Edinburgh University collaborates with cultural venues including the Edinburgh Futures Institute to develop educational programmes that combine technical training with creative practice and critical inquiry.

• Art Futures at UCL was developed to bring together UCL academics and the creative industries to form new partnerships, business opportunities, and research including the development of practical toolkits, education programmes and communities of practice.

• Goldsmiths' Computational Arts programmes frequently develop projects with cultural institutions including Tate Modern and the Barbican, creating learning experiences that bridge classroom instruction and professional practice.

• UAL's Creative Computing Institute partners with organisations such as the Mozilla Foundation and the Open Data Institute to develop educational programmes.

Another model which facilitates education is jointly hosted Ph.D. research between an academic institution and a cultural organisation. In this case the university will be the academic host with the cultural institution providing hands-on experience and expertise in support of work in a 'real world' environment. Through this partnership the cultural organisation also receives additional capacity and dedicated insights, but there are ethical questions with regard to the low remuneration of Ph.D. researchers. Examples of these models include the following:

• The Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University has developed numerous collaborative Ph.D. projects with Tate, Serpentine, Whitechapel Gallery and The Photographers' Gallery on subjects such as archiving born-digital art works, organisational innovation, transnational art practices and computer vision.

• The AHRC Doctoral Focal Award is a project that was launched by AHRC in 2024 as a way to facilitate knowledge, capacity and skills exchange between academic organisations and other kinds of organisations, including cultural organisations with a focus on the development of the creative economy, and the role of the arts and humanities in the development of a 'healthy planet, people and place' approach.¹¹

These educational collaborations create pathways for knowledge and skill development that connect 𝖎 academic learning environments with professional cultural contexts.

Cultural and academic institutions increasingly develop shared technical infrastructure for AxAT development. Below are some examples:

• Museum Data Service is a collaboration between the University of Leicester, The Collections Trust and the educational charity ArtUK building digital infrastructure to change the way museums share object records and knowledge.

• The Digital Catapult collaborates with both academic and cultural partners to create shared facilities for virtual and augmented reality development.

• The Immersive Storytelling Studio at the National Theatre partners with academic researchers to develop technological resources for exploring narrative in virtual environments.

These shared infrastructures create economies of scale and knowledge pooling 𝖒 that would be difficult for either cultural or academic institutions to achieve independently.

Bilateral formal research partnerships between cultural organisations and academic institutions create structured environments for Creative R&D through shared research agendas, co-appointed staff, and joint funding applications that bridge institutional boundaries. These partnerships typically arise between universities and specialist cultural organisations with specific research capacities and institutional prestige. For example:

• Unthinking Photography represents a collaborative research initiative that challenges conventional approaches to photographic practice and theory through sustained dialogue between cultural practitioners and academic researchers. The partnership demonstrates how bilateral collaborations can generate new critical frameworks that serve both scholarly discourse and cultural practice.

• The Creative AI Lab is a collaboration between Serpentine Arts Technologies and King's College London's Department of Digital Humanities that hosts critical research into machine learning and artistic practice. The partnership produces publications, tools, and methodologies that serve both academic and cultural communities, establishing a model for how cultural institutions can engage with technical research while maintaining their public-facing mission. The lab's work bridges theoretical investigation with practical application in contemporary art contexts.

• ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) has developed sustained research partnerships with RMIT University that investigate relationships between moving image cultures and emerging technologies. These collaborations result in both rigorous academic publications and innovative public-facing programming, demonstrating how bilateral partnerships can generate outputs that serve multiple constituencies while advancing knowledge across 𝖎 institutional contexts.

  𝕴

• The Victoria and Albert Museum's partnership with the Royal College of Art has generated significant research on the preservation and presentation of digital design objects, combining the museum's curatorial expertise with the college's academic methodologies. This collaboration addresses critical challenges in digital heritage while producing new knowledge about the intersection of design practice and institutional stewardship.

We wanted to both fund a diverse range of people, and also think about how we were creating more equity in a sector that we know has very problematic power structures. This is particularly pronounced when you're bringing together the power dynamics of art, technology, and higher education.

- Jo Lansdowne, Executive Producer, Pervasive Media Studio

Multilateral initiatives bringing together academic institutions, technology industry, and cultural organisations are driven by economic imperatives and top-down policy directives focused on creative industries value. These programmes represent the UK's most extensive investments in Creative R&D.¹² They are funded through UKRI via competitive tender processes typically led by universities due to infrastructural requirements. Cultural organisations generally participate as downstream partners due to UKRI's requirement for Independent Research Organisation status for lead partners - a barrier for all but the largest institutions, e.g., Tate or V&A, though increasingly more cultural organisations are achieving this status through demonstrating Creative R&D capabilities. To date, key funded programmes have included:

• Creative Industries Cluster Programme (2018) was an £80 million UKRI investment that created nine regional clusters linking industry and research, including specialised hubs for video games in Dundee, film and television in Wales, and textiles in East London. The programme generated significant long-term infrastructure including the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre and StoryFutures Academy. Watershed was the only cultural organisation to lead one of the nine clusters through the £6.8 million Bristol + Bath Creative R&D programme.

• Audience of the Future represented a £39.3 million investment specifically targeting immersive technologies (AR/XR/VR) with a focus on audience development across culture, heritage and entertainment sectors. A notable project was the Royal Shakespeare Company's 'Dream', a digital interpretation of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' that used motion capture technology to enable remote audience interaction with live performance. This project's success led to RSC becoming the first performing arts organisation to achieve Independent Research Organisation status.

• CoSTAR (Convergent Screen Technologies and Performance in Real-time) is a £75.6 million national network of R&D labs distributed across UK regions, with the National Lab located at Pinewood Studios. The programme focuses on commercial applications in gaming, television, film and digital entertainment, though cultural organisations have had limited involvement to date due to CoSTAR's commercial priorities.

• BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides) is a £15.9 million programme running from 2022 to 2028 that integrates Arts and Humanities research into Responsible AI development, operating as a bridge between academia, industry, policy and regulatory work on responsible AI implementation.

Based on the comprehensive mapping presented in this chapter, a striking paradox emerges: while cultural organisations are conducting substantial Creative R&D activities that generate significant spillovers into technology, academia, and civic innovation, 𝖒 this work remains largely unrecognised both within the cultural sector itself and across 𝖎 adjacent domains 𝖛.

The evidence demonstrates that cultural organisations are not merely passive adopters of technologies developed elsewhere, but active sites of innovation. From ACMI's pioneering AI-powered visitor experiences to Serpentine's data governance experiments, from grassroots communities such as Trust developing new collaborative models to Watershed's civic technology innovations, the cultural sector is generating knowledge and capabilities that influence broader innovation ecosystems.

Recognising and properly valuing Creative R&D within cultural organisations is essential not only for strengthening 𝖗 the cultural sector's capacity for technological engagement, but for realising the full potential 𝖒 of cross-sectoral 𝖎 innovation. The following chapter sets out strategic proposals for addressing this recognition gap and building the integrated, responsive innovation ecosystem that contemporary technological and social challenges demand.