InGAME research and development hub

That this House acknowledges the publication of a new report highlighting the transformative role played by the InGAME (Innovation for Games and Media Enterprise) research and development centre in Dundee; notes that InGAME, established in 2018 by Abertay University in collaboration with academic and industry partners, has emerged as a pioneering hub of innovative research and support services for games companies, facilitating creative experimentation, developing scale-up capacity and fostering diversification and growth throughout the Dundee games cluster and beyond; welcomes the findings of the BiGGAR Economics report which shows that companies collaborating with InGAME are projected to generate an estimated £84.7 million gross value added (GVA) for the UK economy over the next 10 years, with £55.3 million GVA and 115 jobs expected to be generated within the Tay Cities Region alone; further notes that the impact analysis reveals that for every £1 of UK public funding invested in InGAME, the project is anticipated to generate an impressive £15.90 GVA for the UK economy, while successfully stimulating £2.08 of research and development investment from industry partners; notes that to date more than 177 research projects have been funded through InGAME’s innovation voucher scheme and more than 2,200 games industry professionals and researchers have been up-skilled through training and engagement activities; and recognises that InGAME’s success was instrumental in Abertay University securing preferred bidder status to host one of four new UK virtual production labs which are funded through UKRI’s Convergent Screen Technologies and performance in Realtime (CoSTAR) programme.