Virtual Heritage FutureS (VHF)

The Virtual Heritage Futures project builds on an existing UK-China research collaboration to investigate the short and long-term impact and opportunities for the private sector and creative industry (with a focus on digital technology) to inform, support, and optimise the direction of museums business models. It will contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals in both countries, looking at Creative economy, Sustainable cities and infrastructures and, sustainable preservation of cultural heritage. It is developed based on the pioneering work of the 'Museums of the Future' (MoF) project since 2017, with a network of over 25 sector partners and stakeholders, to respond to structural challenges to museums as cultural and educational institutions struggling with outdated business models.

Statistically, the Heritage Sector contributed a total GVA of £36.6bn and provided over 563,509 jobs in 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic) in the UK. Compared to other sectors, employment in the heritage sector grow rapidly between 2011 and 2019 (Heritage and the economy, 2020). Unique value could be provided by heritage, such as a deeper understanding of the place, a greater sense of community, and more opportunities for reflection. Heritage could benefit people’s well-being if they can learn about it by themselves and it could also teach people new skills. Heritage organisations should focus on well-being when they create the strategy to recover the sector from the Covid 19 pandemic, which could also help these organisations to achieve their goals of sustainability (The heritage alliance, 2020). Through its economic and communicative power, cultural heritage is more connected to the present than ever before. 

The project will undertake a comparative analysis of the changing patterns of investment, effective engagement, and co-production of digital content of both the creative industry and cultural heritage sector stakeholders such as regional heritage authorities, heritage sites managers, museum directors, curators and professional bodies, through both quantitative sector surveys in both Beijing and Shanghai in China and London and the Midlands in the UK, as well as running five qualitative case studies in each country. Whilst the survey will be sector-wide and aims to be inclusive, case studies are carefully selected to cover a sample of a diverse range of partnerships and creative productions. 

This project is collaborating with two Chinese universities, Beijing Institute of Technology and China University of Communication, as well as several industrial experts from virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Creative industries are one of the main financial contributors to the UK’s economy, and China is one of the countries which has thousands of years of history. We argue that collaborations between the UK and China, specifically in cultural heritage and its sustainable development, should be encouraged.