The Word Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) launched their new international collaboration project this month at the World Publishing Expo 2014 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
As founding partners, the Media Innovation Studio went along to chat to delegates about research and industry collaborations in the form of our Interactive Newsprint, Media Lab session and Civic Drone Centre as part of WAN-IFRA’s dedicated space at the conference.
WAN-IFRA’s Media Innovation Hub, launched in June this year at the World Newspaper Congress in Turin, seeks to foster innovation between the news and publishing industries and academia. Underpinned by a global alliance of partners from both sectors, the hub hopes to connect partners and drive technical, editorial and collaborative approaches.
During the three-day event in Amsterdam, Media Innovation Studio director Paul Egglestone and researcher and lecturer John Mills introduced a range of projects where industry-academia collaborative working was at the core of the research. These included the Bespoke Project, Interactive Newsprint and Glass Journalism – a new project running out of the studio that’s examining the potential uses of Google Glass technology.
John Mills said: “The Media Innovation Hub is a powerful initiative to link research with industry under the banner of innovation. We’re excited to be a part of it, and are eager to help support new initiates and thinking over the coming months and years. Our research has always tried to explore new thinking within the media industry, and WAN-IFRA’s Media Innovation Hub is an ideal partner for fostering future collaborations.”
Also speaking about the Hub, Stephen Fozard – it’s project director – said: “We want to create a sustainable ecosystem for innovation for our industry.
“Our goal is to coordinate within the Hub, short and long term innovative strategies and to encourage experience, expertise and tools sharing and provide networking opportunities for publishers, suppliers, start ups, innovators, developers, academic and research centres.
“We aim to address the issue of a weakening innovation ecosystem in the news publishing value chain encourage and advocate for long term innovative strategies at publishing house level and facilitate academic and publisher collaboration.”
In the coming months, the Media Innovation Hub will be launching a networking platform that aims to connect industry with academics working in innovative fields from across the globe.
