The digital games market is an enormous and fast-growing industry with extraordinary impact, particularly on young people and increasingly on other segments of the population. The importance of the UK games industry (3rd largest in the world) was underlined in the Chancellor's Autumn statement (5th December 2012), which confirmed substantial tax reliefs for the digital games industry, saying that "the Government will ensure that the reliefs are among the most generous in the world". Enthusiasm for digital games is underlined by a 2012 Forbes magazine article suggesting that, by the age of 21, the typical child has played 10,000 hours of digital games. How can we harness widespread enthusiasm for digital games to contribute to advances in society and science in addition to economic impacts? For example, we can test economic theories by analysing the artificial economies in online games, or we can improve the motor skills of recovering stroke patients by using games based on motion detection devices such as the Wii controller, Kinect or simply the mobile phone. In this proposal we will bring the UK digital games industry closer to scientists and healthcare workers to unlock the potential for scientific and social benefits in digital games. The numbers of games sold and the numbers of game hours played mean that we only need to persuade a small fraction of the games industry to consider the potential for social and scientific benefit to achieve a massive benefit for society, and potentially to start a movement that will lead to mainstream distribution of games aimed at scientific and social benefits. In order to do this we need to understand the current state of the digital games industry, by engaging directly with games companies and with industry network associations like the Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Network. We have a group of 12 games companies and 9 network organisations, all of whom have pledged their support, to get us started. Then we need to build simulation models that will allow us to investigate what might happen in the future (e.g. if government policy were to encourage the development of games with scientific and social benefits). We need to conduct research into sustainable business models for digital games, and particularly for games with scientific and social goals. These will show us how businesses can start up and grow to develop a new generation of games with the potential to improve society. Every action in an online game, from an in-game purchase to a simple button push, generates a piece of network data. This is a truly immense source of information about player behaviours and preferences. We will explore what online data is available now and might become available in the future, investigate the issues around gathering such data, and develop new algorithms to "mine" that data to better understand game players as an avenue for making better games, societal impact and scientific research. It is an ambitious programme, but the potential benefits if we are even partially successful could have a huge impact on children, science and wider society.

The CDT in Media and Arts Technology will train PhD students to become skilled researchers and practitioners at the intersection of science, technology, digital media and the arts. The proposed CDT builds on the outstanding success of Queen Mary's current Media and Arts Technology (MAT) programme, introducing new training elements in Design, Innovation and Materials and expanded industrial and international partnerships. It addresses all 3 of EPSRCS's Digital Economy themes, particularly Digitally Connected Citizens and many ICT themes, especially Next Generation Interaction Technologies, Data to Knowledge and ICT for Manufacturing; Digital Healthcare. MAT is firmly grounded in Britain's Digital Economy (DE), which contributes the biggest share of GDP in any g20 nation and is projected to increase by a third by 2016. The Creative Digital sector in East London, on Queen Mary's doorstep and known as Tech City, is the fastest growing DE cluster in the UK, outstripping Greater London and the UK for jobs growth since 2001. It now accounts for 48,500 jobs in over 3200 companies, ranging from micro-business and SMEs to global players like Ustwo and Last.fm, and is attracting inward investment from international players such as IBM, Facebook, and Google. The Creative Digital sector demands workers with a high degree of technical skill coupled with creative skills, able to work in multi-disciplinary teams: exactly the type of graduate MAT will produce. The MAT CDT has an established network of over 40 external partners including: large companies (BBC, IBM, Orange, Sony and Procter & Gamble) health organisations (Royal Hospital of Neurodisability) and Tech City SMEs (Cinimod, Lean Mean Fighting Machine, Ustwo, Playgen, United Visual Artists, Hide&Seek, Troika), cultural institutions (Barbican, Science Museum and V&A), and governmental bodies (UKTI, TCIO, DSTL and London & Partners). Many partners host students' Advanced Placement Project, provide data sets and technical resources, supervision and mentoring, and exposure to a wide range of markets and audiences. The CDT acts as a focus bringing together otherwise disparate external bodies who discover shared interests and values. Because DE is a key strategic area for QML, the university invests heavily in the area. The existing MAT CDT catalysed the formation of qMedia, a cross-Faculty Research Centre based in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, and continues to be at its core. qMedia includes the world leading Centre for Digital Music, the newly formed Cognitive Science Group, the Multimedia and Vision Group, and members of the Networks, Vision and Antennas Groups. In EECS alone, qMedia has >40 academics, 41 RAs, 102 PhD students and a portfolio of grants with a current value of over £21 million. The CDT led to a major expansion in Digital Media research and teaching at Queen Mary. It inspired the creation of both a MSc in Media and Arts Technology and a BSc(Eng) in Multimedia and Arts Technology. The University invested around £3M in 200m2 of facilities for the MAT CDT, including Media and Arts Technology Studios, CDT hub (work/meeting space), 'maker' workshops, and a multimedia IT suite for audio/video editing. In conclusion, the existing CDT and its proposed renewal brings value nationally, locally and to the university. It is also a major international beacon of excellence that has led to several international partnerships, particularly in USA and China.