Heritage-led urban regeneration: a scalable model for community engagement using immersive technologies

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This project explores the capacity of immersive technologies to inform urban regeneration strategies, by harnessing the power of cultural heritage through community advocacy. We will undertake a consultation exercise with a selection of community heritage groups with an interest in urban heritage, to identify the ways in which they could employ immersive technologies to articulate their ideas and contributions to regeneration initiatives. They frequently have a wealth of knowledge about hidden or lost heritage assets which could inform regeneration projects, but do not always have the means to disseminate this beyond websites. A handful of recent projects have employed immersive experiences, both VR and AR, to present this heritage although this has tended to be driven by SMEs or university researchers, often providing funding unavailable to community heritage groups. While this has begun to show the potential of such technologies, the means for community heritage groups to engage with such technologies themselves, or to be able to approach SMEs to develop compelling funding applications has not hitherto been scoped or shared. We will therefore consult with creative industry SMEs who possess the relevant skills set to support the development of immersive experiences by such groups. We are seeking to identify the most effective, practicable and affordable means for community heritage groups to work with creative industry SMEs to use immersive technologies to champion imaginative regeneration. Our project is framed with respect to the expectation that clearly now exists that local councils should lie at the heart of local action, and the recognition that urban regeneration initiatives frequently see councils engaged in co-production with community groups. We will scope out opportunities and methods of working through a review of existing projects employing immersive experiences in community engagement from across the country, both those driven by community groups and those delivered by sector leaders. We will hold a focus group workshop drawing on locally-based community heritage groups with an urban regeneration focus, creative industry SMEs and academic colleagues, to inform our reporting, and provide feedback on our initial findings and to assist in finalising our recommendations. We will use our consultation to propose a roadmap, or workflow, for producing community-led immersive experiences, identifying the kinds of challenges that are part of that workflow and which companies could help to solve them, thus promoting the different creative industries that could be involved. We will disseminate the results of our work in the form of both a written report and a video showcase. It is vitally important to give community heritage groups the tools to increase their effectiveness in their contributions to the future of their towns and cities; providing a roadmap to show them what they can achieve themselves using their typically extensive knowledge of the heritage of their areas and guiding them to the resources and partnerships they need to make compelling funding applications to acquire technical support where needed.