DCRC - Digital Cultures Research Centre

Last Friday saw the culmination of a fantastically successful first sandbox programme for the REACT knowledge Exchange hub. The highliy anticipated and sold out Heritage Sandbox showcase event on the 28th of September gave an engaging overview of six innovative projects linking academics and creative industries partners. One of the projects was, of course, City Strata, led by DCRC researcher Charlotte Crofts.

The REACT team have recently posted online some beautiful videos that explain the projects. City Strata is described and explained by Charlotte and others involved in the project, alongside some great discussion of the value of taking part in the project. See the video on the City Strata microsite.

The aim of REACT is to initiate a form of culture change, both in the ways in which universities think about the uses of Arts and Humanities Research and the way in which they conduct business and also the ways in which creative industries businesses view academic research. In a recent Guardian Professional Network blog post, the DCRC's Prof. Jonathan Dovey, also Director of REACT, said

REACT is a culture change project. At the end of four years I hope that academics who are planning a research project will not only think of publishing in a peer reviewed journal but might also pick up the phone to a creative producer and talk about making a film, TV programme, app, installation or immersive experience.

REACT has also launched a new website that provides lots of information about the activities of the hub and also the themes of the next three sandbox programmes, including books and print and future documentary. These themes, of course, significantly resonate with the research carried out by the DCRC, not least through the work of Collab Docs and iDocs.