With a bias towards participation and interactivity, the digital realm has created conditions to allow people to engage with life more playfully using everyday devices (e.g. computers, smartphones). Digital technology has also allowed alternate public spaces to be created, helping to re-imagine citizenship and activism (e.g. Facebook campaigns, e-petitions). One area where playful engagement in civic life has started to generate serious attention is, in the field of videogames and experimental games. A burgeoning 'Games for change' movement has emerged in the last decade, which has appropriated videogames to engage people, beyond entertainment. A growing number of artists, educationalists and activists are developing games that contend with personal, social and political subject matter: e.g. poverty (Cost of Life); immigration (Escape from Woomera); forced labour practices (Sweatshop); the fiscal crisis (Layoff); and the war on terror (September 12th), with the explicit intention of altering or affecting player opinion outside of the game world. The network will also focus on other emergent game platforms (e.g. Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) and Urban Games) that use digital technologies to create games, played online as well as in physical locations. These games allow immersive and interactive storytelling experiences to play out across a range of (trans) media platforms. There are notable examples of these types of games engaging with social justice, community and humanitarian issues (e.g. World Without Oil; Raiders of the Lost Crown). They provide the network with a second key focus. Social change games tend to be the products of a burgeoning independent game scene, which represents the interests of those outside of 'big' industry - developing games that challenge normative, mainstream and commercial values. The network is keen to situate and undertsand these types of games within the scenes and sub-cultures that comprise the independent game industry. The recent emergence of global 'Game Collectives' (e.g. Copenhagen Games Collective; Invisible Playground in Berlin; The Larks in Manchester), which are developing a mix of 'on' and 'off-screen' games, are an important independent scene, to locate social change gaming. Not only do Game Collectives connect independent game communities to specific locales, they often foreground games and play as a means to explore notions of community, identity and togetherness. They provide the network with a third key focus area. Focusing on these key areas, this network will create an international multi-disciplinary community of practice. It will involve a range of core partners and associates with expertise in the key focs areas, representative of research and practice based perspectives (Manchester (MMU, The Larks, Madlab); the EU (The Copenhagen Games Collective; Utrecht University, University of Leuphana) and; North America (Tiltfactor at Dartmouth College; Diego de La Vega)), to explore the potentials of digital games as change agents. This will be done in collaboration with other participants, representing key stakeholder groups. Working collaboratively as a community of practice, the network will host a variety of activities (e.g. conferences; seminars; meetings; open-space workshops and game jams) to allow participants; academics, game developers, community practitioners, activists and third sector bodies, to explore and develop the potentials of digital games. It is anticipated that these activities will enable the network to generate key insights, identify areas for future research and investment as well as raise awareness around social change gaming and facilitate growth in the field within the UK and in the Manchester region, in particular.

A 2020 survey of creative and cultural organisations across the South West of England, led by Dr. Tarek Virani and funded by the AHRC's Bristol and Bath Creative R + D Clusters programme, showed that between 18% and 22% of organisations were either not affected by, or became more productive than prior to, the pandemic. Further analysis shows a number of shared characteristics across these respondents. The aim of the proposed research is to ask what resilience, and subsequent recovery and rebuilding, might look like for the UK's creative economy. By testing the accuracy of the survey findings across the UK, we will design as well as assess the efficacy of a resilience framework and toolkit for creative micro-businesses (CMBs) across the UK as a way to aid CMBs, policymakers and other stakeholders with respect to sectoral recovery and rebuilding from the Covid 19 crisis.

This unique consortium draws on the research excellence of interdisciplinary and complementary design innovation labs at three universities - Lancaster University, Newcastle University and the Royal College of Art and connects it with public and private sectors, linking large and small-scale businesses, service providers and citizens. Together, our expertise in developing and applying creative techniques to navigate unexplored challenges includes that of designers, artists, curators, producers, broadcasters, engineers, managers, technologists and writers - and draws on wider expertise from across the partner universities and beyond. The Creative Exchange responds to profound changes in practice in the creative and media-based industries stimulated by the opening of the digital public space, the ability of everyone to access, explore and create in any aspect of the digital space, moving from 'content consumption' to 'content experience'. It explores new forms of engagement and exchange in the broadcast, performing and visual arts, digital media, design and gaming sectors, by focusing on citizen-led content, interactive narrative, radical personalization and new forms of value creation in the context of the 'experience economy'. The primary geographic focus is the Northwest of England centred around the opportunity presented by the growth of MediaCityUK and its surrounding economy. The three universities act as local test beds with field trials in London, Lancaster and Newcastle prior to larger public facing trials in the northwest. This will support the North West regional strategy for growth in digital and creative media industries, whilst generating comparative research and development locally, nationally and internationally. The Creative Exchange has been developed in response to a paradigm shift in content creation and modes of distribution in a digitally connected world, which has profound impact for the arts and humanities. This transformational-change is taking place within the landscape of a growing digital public space that includes archives, data, information and content. How we navigate and experience this space - and how we generate content for and within it - is central to how we create economic, social, cultural and personal value. The Hub draws on new and agile approaches to knowledge exchange for the creative economy that have been previously developed by the partner universities and new ones co-developed with specialist arts organizations, sector organizations and communities of users.