New Futures of Creativity and Innovation (FOCI) Institute to shape positive futures for the creative industries 

Goldsmiths has launched a new Strategic Research Institute, FOCI, to help the UK’s creative industries navigate rapid technological and social change and build more hopeful futures for creators, audiences and communities. 

Selected from a highly competitive field of 12 college-wide bids and endorsed by an internal and external expert panel, FOCI brings together Goldsmiths’ long-standing strengths in creative research, human–technology interaction and policy engagement into a single, public-facing institute.  

FOCI will be led by Professor Jonathan Freeman as Director, with Noemi Ponzoni as Chief Strategy Officer and will work across departments and with partners in industry, government and the third sector.  

FOCI grows out of the track record of I2 media and the Foresight Lab, which have pioneered ways of co-designing research questions with broadcasters, technology companies, policymakers and cultural organisations.  

Professor Jonathan Freeman said:  

“FOCI is designed to change that. It builds directly on 25 years of doing translational, collaborative work with industry and policymakers, but gives it a coherent, public-facing home that carries the Goldsmiths name.”  

 “In the past, institutes like i2 media and Foresight Lab have shown how you can co-define the right questions with partners and then answer them robustly. FOCI takes that proven model and scales it across Goldsmiths, so that many more academics can work in this bi‑directional, embedded way with the creative industries and policy makers.”  

The institute was selected through Goldsmiths Strategic Research Institute competition, designed to identify and back areas where the university is already “winning” and has the potential for greater global impact.  

An internal panel shortlisted proposals from across the College before an external expert panel recommended that FOCI be the sole institute funded in this round, based on criteria including existing traction, impact potential, plausibility and a clear route to further revenue and influence. 

FOCI will focus on the future of the creative industries – including screen, games, performance and related sectors – in the context of: 

• Rapid technological change (especially AI and new infrastructures)   
• The climate emergency, economic and political instability   
• Shifts in work, skills and wellbeing for creative workers   
• The need to reconnect academic foresight with industry and policy timelines  

FOCI will operate as a Strategic Research Institute of Goldsmiths under a governance framework recently approved by the College’s Research and Enterprise Committee.  

Ultimate oversight will sit with the Vice‑Chancellor, supported by a governance board comprising external members and senior leaders.    

The core leadership team will include: 

• Director – Professor Jonathan Freeman   
• Chief Strategy Officer – Noemi Ponzoni   
• Partnerships and development specialists    

 A network of associated/affiliated academics from across Goldsmiths will be invited into FOCI to co-develop programmes of work.  These associates will help shape FOCI’s agenda and identify how their own research can address urgent questions in industry and policy.  

FOCI will act as an independent but deeply networked hub that: 

• Scans the horizon for signals of change in the creative industries   
• Co-designs questions with industry, policymakers, investors and communities   
• Prototypes and tests pathways to more desirable futures in agile, controlled environments    
• Translates insights back into policy, practice, curricula and public debate    

A tiered partnership model will allow organisations to engage with FOCI at different levels, from being named partners invited to events, through advisory roles, to fully embedded collaborative R&D partners.    

“Because FOCI is relevant to industry, funders and policymakers, we expect it to generate significant external revenue – through research grants, commissioned work and philanthropic support. Crucially, this isn’t income for its own sake: it’s fuel to tackle big, sector‑defining challenges in ways that benefit creatives, communities and the wider economy,”  Professor Freeman said.

For Chief Strategy Officer Noemi Ponzoni, FOCI’s role is to join up spaces that are too often disconnected:  

“FOCI is here to bridge those gaps – to create a system that is agile enough to test ideas quickly, grounded enough in research to be robust, and connected enough to industry and policy to actually make a difference. 

“Goldsmiths’ mission is about building a better world through knowledge and action. In practice, that means we have to move beyond publishing insights in isolation. FOCI will co-create pathways to better futures with partners – from new skills for creative workers, to fairer uses of AI, to more sustainable business models – and then prototype those pathways at speed.”  

At a time when much debate about AI and technology in the creative industries is nihilistic and dystopian, FOCI is deliberately oriented towards positive futures.  

Professor Freeman said:  

 “There’s no shortage of people telling us that everything is going to hell in a handcart. FOCI takes a different stance. We believe it is both necessary and possible to articulate compelling, positive futures for creativity, and to show credible routes to get there.    

“We’re not naïve about the scale of the challenges or the power of some of the actors in this space. But universities – especially a place like Goldsmiths – still have a unique ability to convene, to imagine, and to prototype alternatives. FOCI is our way of putting that ability to work, at scale, for and with the creative industries.”  

Ponzoni added:  

 “Young people often struggle to see formal education as a route to meaningful futures in the creative industries. Part of our ambition with FOCI is to rebuild that trust by showing that universities can work with students, creatives, industry and policymakers to shape the systems they’re entering – not just describe them from the sidelines.”