Immersive Technologies – Entrepreneurial Futures

Inspiring businesses to leverage immersive technologies through expert guidance and collaborative research
Immersive Media Lab
The Entrepreneurial Futures project ended in March 2025.
To find out about other opportunities to collaborate with the University of Plymouth please contact Enterprise Solutions .
The Immersive Technologies strand of the Entrepreneurial Futures project offered dedicated support for businesses in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to explore how immersive technologies – including augmented (AR), mixed (MR) and virtual reality (VR) and 360 Full Dome – could be used for innovation, audience engagement and problem solving across a wide range of contexts and industries.
Our support included:
  • Design Researcher in Residence (DRiR): a creative artist, designer or developer stationed part time within the partner organisation to co-create immersive solutions tailored to their needs. This collaboration, overseen by one of our expert academics, fosters research that integrates design methods for impactful outcomes.
  • Academic consultancy: access to specialist expertise from our academics to guide partners through challenges in adopting immersive technologies. Our academics offer advice and solutions to aid decision making for virtual, augmented or mixed reality applications.
  • Engagement events: opportunities for businesses in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to learn how immersive technologies are being used within different sectors and how to access support from the University to make their own ideas a reality.
Find out more in the project summaries below.

Unlocking Research and Development Pathways for Immersive Technologies

The project leaves a powerful legacy: forging lasting partnerships across the region and building a shared commitment to collaborate on research, development and innovation in immersive technologies.
These connections continue to ignite new ideas, inspire cross-sector partnerships, and create opportunities that will drive growth in the creative and tech industries in Cornwall and Isles of Scilly and beyond.
Watch the film: Unlocking Research and Development Pathways for Immersive Technologies, produced by Bull & Wolf.
 

A Thousand Voices

Industry partner: Crow Architecture
Academic lead: Hannah Wood
Technical Director: Shawna Cadence
Composer: Verity Standen
Technical team: Andrew Banks , Musaab Garghouti , Rebecca Perkins , Ben Hudson, Felix Woodyatt, Nico Bray.
This ten-minute augmented reality journey invites audiences to participate in an immersive choral experience, a modern take on the moment when a thousand people sang together on Valentine's Day in 1893. Devised and developed through academic consultancy, it builds on the Church Records archive for Arts Centre Penryn (formerly Penryn Methodist Church). Through spatial sound experiments, interactive choral workshops and user experience design in real-time engines, this research-led collaboration supported Crow Architecture in extending its practice, while generating insights into how immersive design methods and technologies can engage new audiences with heritage in emotionally resonant, innovative ways.
A group of people standing apart and singing inside a church. University of Plymouth

Engaging New Audiences with Cornwall's History

Industry partner: Cornwall Heritage Trust
Academic lead: Joel Hodges
Technical team: Shawna Cadence and Andrew Banks
DRiR: Bryn Higgins
This project brought the Iron Age hillfort of Caer Bran to life through a pilot 3D immersive experience, combining 360-degree video, soundscapes and digital reconstruction. It delivered valuable knowledge exchange for both partners: heritage staff were upskilled in immersive technologies and digital content creation, while academic teams gained insights into applied heritage interpretation and community engagement. A bespoke toolkit was created to support future immersive experiences across heritage sites.
Video screen showing Caer Bran University of Plymouth

Enhancing Heritage with Immersive Technology

Industry partner: Prideaux Place
Academic lead: Dr Péter Bokody and Pete Quinn Davis
Technical team: Shawna Cadence , Musaab Garghouti and Andrew Banks
DRiR: Spencer Burrows
Advanced technologies including 3D scanning, 3D printing, digital fabrication, and photogrammetry were used to create an immersive 360 VR tour to transforms how visitors interact with Prideaux Place, offering experimental elements to deepen engagement with its history, architecture and craft. By designing an intuitive interface, the project sought to revolutionise interactions with heritage and inspire greater visitation, while contributing to ongoing research on plaster ceilings and overmantels in Cornwall. The project produced a prototype and explored commercialising digital intellectual property through refined products linked to the storytelling of the tour.
Virtual tour of Prideaux Place University of Plymouth

Fairy Hologram Experience Prototyping

Industry partner: Discovering42
Academic lead: Professor Mike Phillips
Technical team: Shawna Cadence , Andrew Banks and Stewart Starbuck
DRiR: Lana Pericic
This project developed a prototype immersive exhibit combining holographic technology, interactive storytelling and rainforest-themed education to create a dynamic visitor experience. The project explored how immersive tools can balance entertainment with educational value, while also supporting financial sustainability through increased footfall and potential media interest. Knowledge exchange between creative practitioners and researchers shaped a scalable model for future innovation in visitor experiences.
a person wearing a motion capture suit opposite the digital render of their movements University of Plymouth

Fulldome Innovation

Industry partner: Shadow Tor Studios
Academic lead: Joel Hodges
Technical team: Andrew Banks and Shawna Cadence
The University supported Shadow Tor Studios with the development of immersive fulldome content through a tailored package of activity. This included a bespoke Unreal Engine workshop series to build skills in interactive design and asset optimisation; participation in Full Dome UK (see below) with follow-up sessions to explore trends and opportunities; access to equipment and expertise for site scanning and photogrammetry aligned with a commercial heritage brief; and support to identify and prepare a funding bid for the next stage of the project.
Shadow Tor Studios Unreal Engine workshop University of Plymouth

Heritage and Product Development

Industry partner: National Trust at Lanhydrock
Academic lead: Dr Péter Bokody and Pete Quinn Davis
Technical team: Shawna Cadence and Mark Prior
DRiR: Jennifer Savage
In partnership with the National Trust, this project translated digital laser scans of a 17th-century Jacobean plaster ceiling into tangible products and interactive experiences, creating new opportunities for heritage engagement. Targeting diverse audiences, including heritage communities, academics, young people, and disabled audiences, the project used accessible digital platforms to foster interest in architectural history. The range of projects explored the potential of locally sourced materials and craft techniques to develop unique products that promote heritage preservation while offering commercial opportunities, focusing on children and the older generation.
3D printed replicas of designs from the plaster ceiling at Lanhydrock. University of Plymouth

Innovating JamUp!

Industry partner: Spectrum Tailored Technologies
Academic lead: Dr Rafael Arrivabene
Technical team: Shawna Cadence
A strategic consultancy explored how immersive technologies could enhance the gamified learning experience of an educational web app preparing for market launch. By assessing the potential integration of immersive features, the work supported the client's ambition to differentiate their product in a competitive sector, with insights aligned to academic best practice and user engagement research.
a child brushing their teeth while using the JamUp! app. JamUp!

Landscape Futures

Industry partner: Creative Kernow
Academic lead: Dr Jamie Harper
Technical team: Shawna Cadence
DRiR: Brooke Heathcock
This project began by exploring the potential of augmented reality (AR) to help Newquay residents visualise how proposed changes in the Cornwall Local Plan might impact their local environment. As the concept developed, the team created a prototype smartphone application as a practical and accessible proof of concept. This place-based tool enabled users to engage with potential future developments in housing, infrastructure, and the environment directly through their mobile devices.
A person overlooking a beach in Newquay and pointing at a smartphone Jamie Harper

Story-driven Solutions in Immersive Sound

Industry partner: Wildworks
Academic lead: Hannah Wood
Technical team: Dan Balfour
This consultancy explored how immersive sound design and production could attract new audiences and push the boundaries of Wildworks’ practice as the UK’s leading landscape theatre company. Creative workshops were used to surface the company’s research questions in immersive sound, potential areas of innovation and experimentation, and thematic story interests. Dr Hannah Wood developed The Signal – an immersive story with sound at its heart in form and content – as the basis for a follow-on AHRC research funding application exploring story-driven technological sound solutions that enable the intimate and epic, personal and communal to co-exist in theatrical immersive experience.
signal mast on top of a hill and a stone arch with a neon green glow. Hannah Wood

The Creakers – An immersive exploration

Industry partner: imPOSSIBLE Producing Ltd
Academic leads: Professor Mike Phillips and Musaab Garghouti
Technical team: Shawna Cadence
DRiR: Joanna Clarke
This project created numerous 3D assets for a ten-minute immersive experience for The Creakers, enabling Impossible Producing to explore the further development of the live stage musical in various immersive technologies, such as VR and fulldome. By developing assets for use in immersive environments, the team created ingredients for scalable experience that could be replicated across multiple locations as the show tours.
The Creakers theatre set Impossible Producing
 

Events

Professor Mike Phillips in panel discussion at Full Dome UK event
Full Dome UK
Future Screen Innovators
A targeted 360° film and fulldome intensive, designed to connect innovative businesses and industry stakeholders from Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly with national and international leaders in immersive media. Designed to maximise engagement through FDUK 2024 – the UK’s flagship event for fulldome creativity – the opportunity offered curated experiences, focused knowledge exchange and facilitated networking that strengthened links between academia and industry. By introducing regional partners to cutting-edge developments, the initiative sparked new ideas and pathways for content creation and distribution, supporting the potential for growth in the region’s future screen sector.
People in the recreated homestead at The Story of Emily museum.
University of Plymouth
Immersive Storytelling
This industry-focused event offered attendees an exclusive, behind-the-scenes experience at Cornwall’s newest premium attraction, The Story of Emily. Designed for professionals across the creative, cultural and heritage sectors, participants explored the Story of Emily through the meticulously restored Rectory and cutting-edge War Rooms, as well as engaging in a World Cafe discussion of how to innovate and collaborate on immersive experiences, a Q&A panel with the Story of Emily team, and gaining insights from the University's leading academics in immersive arts. The event inspired new approaches to storytelling, fostered connections between business and academia and demonstrated how immersive design can enhance cultural engagement, audience development and commercial growth across the region.
People engaging in a demonstration of accessible glasses at the Innovate Well event.
University of Plymouth
Innovate Well
Academics and professionals from arts, technology and health came together at The Lost Gardens of Heligan to learn how to harness immersive tech to create more inclusive products and experiences that have a positive impact on users' wellbeing. Combining panel discussions, interactive demonstrations and networking, the event offered practical guidance on research, design and innovation and the benefits of user-centred design. Attendees gained insights from Gareth Allen (SoundView Media) Dr Rory Baxter (University of Plymouth), sound artist Justin Wiggan and Hannah Brady (Squidsoup) and had an opportunity to try VR games, accessible 3D glasses and visit Echo Point in situ at Heligan. The event sparked new connections for future innovations in inclusive tech.
 

Facilites

Seating inside the Immersive Vision Theatre
Immersive Vision Theatre
Facilitating a range of learning, entertainment and research activities
3D printer, digital fabrication laboratory
Digital Fabrication and Immersive Media Laboratories
Technologies in virtual and augmented reality, robotics, 3D scanning and printing, and motion capture
Jill Craigie Cinema
Jill Craigie Cinema
A high-spec space to exhibit film and moving image work, providing unique screenings for the University and wider community
 

Entrepreneurial Futures: Immersive Technologies team

 

Research and innovation in immersive technologies

Find out how leading academics from University of Plymouth are collaborating with industry partners to unlock new possibilities in immersive.

Professor Katharine Willis Pioneers

Katharine Willis, Professor of Smart Cities and Communities
Katharine is a leading voice in the exploration of our interactions with, and perceptions of, our spatial environment and technology.

Quorum: Cultural computation
Professor Mike Phillips shares insights from a previous REF impact case study focused on enhancing audience engagement.

Far South West Immersive logo

Far South West Immersive
A collective of universities and industry leaders driving research, innovation and cross-sector application of immersive technologies for social good.

 
Entrepreneurial Futures