R&D and innovation programmes

Today I work with the Liverpool City Region's businesses, universities, investors and talent to grow its digital and technology sector. I also direct Dreamlab, an R&D lab and collective of 48+ experts; since 2024 we have helped over 100 businesses and freelancers.

I was part of the team that helped the Liverpool City Region win the MusicFutures Creative Cluster, a £7.2m programme with 28 regional and national partners running over five years from 2025, and then led its R&D and innovation.

Before that I directed R&D and innovation at the MediaCity Immersive Technologies Innovation Hub, where we supported over 35 funded collaborations with industry and hundreds of business assists on a £3.2m accelerator programme.

Since the early 2000s I have mostly been industry based, with spells as a senior researcher and academic. I have worked on research with the University of Liverpool's Centre for Architecture and the Visual Arts and at the Institute of Art and Technology at LJMU, where I co-ran the Experimental Technologies Lab and we won grants from the AHRC, Innovate UK and commercial investors.

From 2015 to 2018 my R&D was mainly with Manchester's School of Digital Arts, focused on immersive storytelling. Between 2010 and 2015 it sat within the Centre for Disruptive Media at Coventry University, working on digital engagement with new media, digital publishing and digital storytelling.

I have also sat on the Liverpool LEP Digital Board, the College of Experts at XR Stories in York and review panels for innovation funding across the UK, and worked as an external bid reviewer and advisor for the EPSRC, CoSTAR and Digital Catapult.

Most of my hands-on R&D now is creative AI and agentic workflows, with Soundings the clearest example; for AI projects, see AI consultancy and prototyping. Data made visible is the other thread: Dreaming of Electric Sheep built a digital twin of Liverpool, and Geospatial Data put Google Maps inside Unreal Engine.