A £4m scheme will promote interactive technologies in the region with help from the University of York.

XR Stories is a research and design partnership across Yorkshire and Humberside which has been set up to “understand and exploit the potential of immersive and interactive technologies for storytelling”.

Supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the scheme is run by the university, Screen Yorkshire and the BFI.

XR Stories is calling on small projects to access between £5,000 and £30,000 to explore how storytelling can use virtual reality to create interactive and immersive worlds in interactive and responsive stories, as well as the tools, data and artificial intelligence to create these projects.

The projects will be supported by university academics, and provide internships for students, work placements and studentship funding for longer PhD or Masters projects.

Hugo Heppell, head of investments at Screen Yorkshire and co-director of XR Stories, said the project was “an incredible opportunity for Yorkshire to establish itself as a world leading centre” of digital storytelling.

He said: “This significant investment is testament to the passion, ideas and talent that have driven huge growth in the screen industries here in Yorkshire in recent years. We’re really excited to see how the region responds and encourage companies to rise to the challenge when the funding call opens next month.”

Damian Murphy, director of XR Stories, said: “Yorkshire has the skills, talent, infrastructure, the best network of games developers in the UK, a world-leading R&D base in our universities, and a heritage in storytelling that has seen our screen industries achieve the fastest rate of screen industry growth in the UK, outside of London and the south east. By investing in partnership between industry and academic research XR Stories has a real opportunity to grow further and establish Yorkshire and Humber as the UK Centre of Excellence in immersive storytelling.”

Amanda Nevill, of BFI, said the scheme was part of the region's vision to develop into an international destination for content creators working in the burgeoning audio visual sector.

Details at xrstories.co.uk