Creative Innovation Accelerator

USW helped to create ground-breaking immersive experiences, harnessing augmented reality, mixed reality, and virtual reality technologies.  

USW worked with Tiny Rebel Games, Sugar Creative, and Potato to explore and pioneer cutting-edge immersive experiences, as part of the Audience of the Future programme. 

One of these projects involved working with Aardman on the highly anticipated augmented reality app and experience, Wallace and Gromit in The Big Fixup. This multi-user augmented reality experience brings the characters alive in an entirely new way, creating a new platform for storytelling. 

“Our researchers have conducted user testing and product evaluation, holding masterclasses with students to help us better understand the user experience for augmented reality technology.       

“It is a large scale, fast paced and exciting project, and together with our collaborators, we are creating future-proof practices for multi-user storytelling that involves the audience in the heart of the action.” - Corrado Morgana, Academic Manager for Animation and Games, USW  

“It’s fantastic that we complete our line-up of audience-facing demonstrators with this hugely ambitious collaboration.  

“Their aim to revolutionise augmented reality gaming, along with the advances in AI, haptics, audience interaction and film production technologies from our other competition winners, means the public will be able to try out some truly ground-breaking experiences.” - Professor Andrew Chitty, UKRI Challenge Director for Audience of the Future 

A Digital Transformation Intensive Learning Academy is helping leaders in health and social care to deliver more effective and efficient services to patients. 

Part funded by Welsh Government, the Academy is helping health and social care practitioners to deliver transformational projects around digital solutions, exploring new technologies and fostering a culture of curiosity. A range of flexible courses have been developed with Powys Regional Partnership Board, including postgraduate and doctorate level opportunities within Leading Digital Transformation. 

The goal is to empower workforces with the expertise, skills, and confidence to drive the redesign of health and care systems for the better. This will improve patient outcomes and experiences, while boosting the efficiency and sustainability of services.  

The cross-collaboration across the courses will encourage innovation and collaboration. This will allow the co-development of valuable skills and partnerships to support transformative health and social care.  

“Striving for transformational change should underpin all of our efforts in developing our services and strong leadership is critical to that so we improve experiences for patients, clinicians and the wider public. This programme will support our leaders to drive digital transformation and be a catalyst for innovation.” - Professor Bob Hudson, Co-Director of the Intensive Learning Academy, USW  

“Digital working is key to future service delivery and this exciting work will prepare our teams to lead on this.” - Councillor Myfanwy Alexander, Chair, Powys Regional Partnership Board   

“These dedicated academies are a world first and we are immensely proud that Wales is pioneering in such an important training field. Leading Digital Transformation is set to be a major growth area within health and social care, so it’s imperative that our future leaders develop these crucial skills and knowledge.” - Cari-Anne Quinn, CEO, Life Sciences Hub Wales 

A unique partnership between USW Film & TV School Wales and Screen Alliance Wales is providing valuable experience to the next generation of film-makers. 

USW graduates and students have worked on many leading television productions at Cardiff’s Wolf Studios, including the highly-acclaimed BBC and HBO production, His Dark Materials. 

More than 40 students were given shadowing placements and 30 graduates were employed in paid positions in this production. A further 1,000 USW students have benefited from this relationship through tours of the studios to see behind the scenes and meet production teams.  

“We are thrilled that, thanks to our close partnership with Screen Alliance Wales, we are able to create so many opportunities for our students and graduates to work on internationally respected screen projects. To be able to support so many talented young people, now and on future series, is both an honour and a privilege.” - Tom Ware, Director of Production and Performance, USW  

“When I first started my course the one goal I gave myself was to work on something I love and to get my name in the credits. Tick - done that!” - MJ Hygate, USW Computer Animation Graduate, Pre-Visual Animator, His Dark Materials  

“Having this relationship with USW enables graduates and students to have real time, hands-on experience here in the studio. It has created a new talent pipeline that can support the whole industry, and is a massive step forward for all of us.” - Allison Dowzell, Managing Director, Screen Alliance Wales 

The media.cymru Consortium, which includes USW, is a £50m project to develop a world-leading cluster for media innovation in the Cardiff Capital Region. 

There are 24 partner organisations working in education, broadcasting, technology, media production and local leadership to drive inclusive, sustainable economic growth and an additional £236m in Gross Value Added (GVA) by 2026. 

Responding to the advances made in remote and virtual production during the Covid-19 pandemic, media.cymru will invest in the Region’s digital infrastructure. It is focusing on emerging technologies, increasing small businesses’ capacity for innovation and addressing skills needs. 

A series of industry-led challenge areas including sustainability, bilingual production, diversity and inclusion, tourism, and technology will position the Region’s media sector as a testbed for new content, approaches, and formats. 

Researchers from USW and Cardiff University will be lending their expertise to support an innovation ecosystem, aiming to take 100 companies from initial idea to market-ready new media products and services. 

USW is also leading a co-ordinated research-led skills strategy, linking training providers with industry needs and infrastructure. There is a focus on talent attraction, development, and retention to support emerging formats and technologies. 

USW was part of Clwstwr – a five-year programme that created new products, services, and experiences for screen. It involved universities, Welsh Government, Welsh broadcasters and screen industry businesses. Clwstwr aimed to put innovation at the core of media production in South Wales, moving Cardiff’s thriving screen sector from strength to leadership. 

With a focus on screen industries – film and television production, and their supply chains – academics from USW, Cardiff University, and Cardiff Metropolitan University collaborated to provide research that helped the already thriving scene in South Wales reach its full potential. 

Broadcasters, businesses, and freelancers were able to apply for funding to develop innovative products, services, and experiences.  

These research and development initiatives were designed to respond to changing technologies, shifting patterns of consumption and the benefits of creative fusion and collaboration. 

Clwstwr also created a platform for independent companies, SMEs, micro-businesses and freelancers to compete with global, highly integrated media companies.