The UK's screen and performance sectors realise huge international impact and have long led the way globally in making use of a broad range of technologies to create and distribute content, and to attract, delight and inspire audiences. Our objective, as the UK's Insight and Foresight Unit for Creative R&D, is to work with the CoSTAR Labs, AHRC and other partners to foster and support an environment in which the UK remains a world leader in the Creative Industries. Recognising the convergence of advanced production technologies in multiple Creative Industries sub-sectors - in particular in Film, TV, Games and Live Performance - we will work across the Creative Industries, including studios (large and small), technology companies, creative companies, trade bodies, and investors. Formed as a unique consortium combining Goldsmiths, University of London, BFI (British Film Institute), Edinburgh University and Loughborough University, as the IFU we will be an industry partner, think tank and policy unit. We will conduct research, including our longitudinal industry tracker in collaboration with the AHRC's Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC), and we will commission regular research reports. We will be highly connected with industry, and commercially minded from inception. The IFU's distinctive raison d'etre will be to capture, interrogate, synthesise and visualise data from the Creative Industries, to generate insight and foresight primarily for the Creative Industries themselves, liaising closely with industry partners, and understanding their needs and concerns. Working with the CoSTAR network, and the wider sector, we will: · Support market development for CoSTAR and the wider sector, by collecting, synthesising and analysing multiple data types and sources to provide new forms of intelligence, insight and foresight, to inform research, innovation and investment; · Assist sector actors in understanding the opportunities and impacts of emerging technologies, and in planning and investing on the basis of a robust evidence base; · Deepen and exchange knowledge, insight and foresight on the development of advanced technologies in and for the Creative Industries, through a programme of events and, reports, and a dynamic digital dashboard of industry intelligence; and · Provide robust research and intelligence in a dynamic and agile way, anticipating and responding to the needs of industry and other collaborators and partners. We will create a feedback loop between commercial collaborators, research and policy makers, encouraging data-sharing that will allow creative partners to use data-led approaches and insights to enable them to: · Review and evaluate past performance, track current activity, and inform future investment. · Critically inform R&D challenges and technology adoption, and help assess ROI. · Understand changing market and audience needs. · Investigate key questions relating to the carbon impact of sector activities. · Inform the skills needs and EDI impacts and opportunities across the sector. Our role in the CoSTAR network is to capture and disseminate a body of industry knowledge, trends and needs - providing a lens into the future. We will be an impartial evaluator of what works and what does not work through collation, integration, analysis and synthesis of primary and secondary data. We will embody our values: industry-engaged, authoritative, trusted, dynamic and curious. We will be measured on the extent to which the data, intelligence, information, reports, events and activities we deliver contribute towards future investment in creative R&D that is sustainable and equitable, and which demonstrably contributes towards the UK sustaining its position as a world leader in the Creative Industries.