Surrey launches GAIN programme at Guildford Games festival
The University of Surrey launched the Games and Innovation Nexus (GAIN) project at the Guildford Games Festival, on Friday 16 February, to help tackle challenges within the gaming industry.
The panel comprised Charity Joy (Criterion), Steve Cuss (The GamePlan Consultancy), Andrew Bossom (University of Creative Arts) and Dr Stephen Mooney (University of Surrey), who explored the relationship between universities and the games industry, delving into issues around people and skills, research, and the value of connections and networks.
The Guildford Games festival - a grass roots, community initiative from a team of people actively involved in the Guildford games industry - also provided a platform to introduce the GAIN project, which will deploy £2.3m of funding to address industry challenges by:
- connecting University researchers with games companies with challenges to solve
- connecting the Guildford and Leamington games clusters
- investing in an innovation ecosystem, including a new Games Innovation Zone at Surrey, and a town centre incubation centre at UCA Farnham, that support games innovation commercialisation.
The University of Surrey is particularly excited to develop our innovation collaboration with Guildford’s vibrant and exciting games cluster.Caroline Fleming, Director Surrey Innovation District
GAIN is designed to tackle the challenge of development of a new diversified innovation model that bridges across academic research and the IP sensitive Games industry, creating opportunity for regional economic growth and positive societal impact.
I would like to thank the Guildford Games Committee, for inviting us to host this session, Surrey County Council for their ongoing support for the games sector in our region, and Research England, for recognising the value of our regional games cluster and committing £1.5m to funding it.
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