BFI invests £350k in Goldsmiths led research to deliver equitable futures in screen

Funding ACES: AI, Carbon, Equity, Skills will enable research and consultation to develop and pilot new interventions to explore the impacts of convergent technologies on three key areas: environmental sustainability, equity, diversity and inclusion, and the workforce impacts of AI.

This is the latest award from the BFI Innovation Fund which supports not-for-profit organisations to develop new approaches to persistent challenges facing the screen sector, supporting independents and cultural organisations to thrive in a changing landscape.

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. 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, and 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 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."

“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.”

The BFI National Lottery Innovation Challenge Fund, as part of the BFI’s National Lottery Funding Plan, 2023-2026, seeks to support new solutions to the UK screen sector’s most critical challenges. Between 2024 and 2026, up to £1.8 million will be distributed across up to five challenges, to help not-for-profit organisations to innovate, developing new approaches to persistent problems, whilst also gaining insights that benefit the whole screen sector. Its first call focused on the video games industry, followed by AI for screen archives, and EDI data collection for film production. As part of the 2026-2029 BFI National Lottery Plan, the Innovation Challenge Fund has £2.55m available across multiple challenges over the three-year period.