Key details
Date
- 20 October 2026
Author
- RCA
Read time
- 4 minutes
The RCA announces funding for five new interdisciplinary research projects that address key societal and environmental challenges.
Key details
Date
- 20 October 2026
Author
- RCA
Read time
- 4 minutes
The Royal College of Art (RCA) announces funding for five new research projects. Spanning interactive spaces for live performance, digital tools to turn historic textiles into smart fabrics, collaborative cultural networks, sustainable textile frameworks and interactive tech for teaching engineering, these initiatives underscore the College’s position at the forefront of creative, interdisciplinary research addressing critical societal challenges.
'Drawing Lines' at the RCA's Snap Visualisation Lab, a previous research project by Dr Ali Mohammed and Dr Freddie Hong (both currently working on the 'Sounding Bodies' project). Photo: Vivaan Thongram
“Showcasing the diversity of inquiries and approaches, these five projects are a wonderful testimony to the power and reach of research being conducted at the Royal College of Art. From enabling participatory practices through transforming the way we interact with sound and digital immersive experiences to probing the pasts and futures of textiles, each of the projects is groundbreaking in its own way. All of them also share commitment to co-creation and collaboration with academic partners and wider communities, which is a signature trait of all research and innovation done at the College. We promote partnerships with others because collaboration is the best route to a positive change in the real world.”
Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation
The newly funded research projects are:
Sounding Bodies: an immersive and responsive environment for participatory classical music performance
Funders: EPSRC XR Networks Plus
Research Lead: Dr Ali Mohammed
Partners: Dr Freddie Hong (Kingston School of Art, Interaction Design), ARCO - Music For All
This project will explore how immersive and responsive environments can transform the way young people encounter and perform classical music, making the experience more inviting, participatory, and accessible.
“Sounding Bodies explores how we can create new forms of live classical music experience that are more participatory, shared and accessible to young people. With participants acting as co-designers and active participants throughout, the project places co-design and inclusivity at the centre of the research. By making young musicians the authors rather than the recipients of the experience, we want to explore how future live classical performance can become more inviting, interactive and open to new audiences.”
Senior Tutor (Research) and Academic Lead, Design Products MA/MDes, School of Communication and Design
Textile Ecologies: Prototyping Digital Parametric Futures for Textiles
Funders: EPSRC pro2 Network+
Research Lead: Bine Roth
Partners: University of Colorado Boulder, Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, National Archive
This project will develop an open-source infrastructure that translates historical textile structures from archival collections into datasets, enabling designers and researchers to use computational weaving to produce accessible, textile-based digital sensing devices. This work is supported by EPSRC pro2 Network+, grant number EP/W020564/1.
“Textile archives hold an extraordinary amount of knowledge about how materials have been constructed, patterned and engineered over centuries. Through this project, we want to unlock that knowledge digitally and explore how historical weave structures can inform new interactive and responsive textiles, bringing together the RCA, the National Archives and the Unstable Design Lab (AdaCAD open source software for weaving) to create open-source tools and workflows that others can build on in the future.”
Tutor (Research), Textiles MA, School of Communication and Design
Shared Authorship: A UK–Ireland Early Career Researcher Network for Participatory Cultural Practice
Funders: Research Ireland and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Research Lead: Professor Zey Suka-Bill
Partners: South East Technological University (SETU)
This project will establish a UK–Ireland early career researcher network, connecting the RCA and SETU to explore participatory cultural production in museums and galleries through combining institutional mentoring, peer exchange, cross-sector engagement and structured opportunities for collaborative knowledge production. This network is co-funded between Research Ireland and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
“Participatory cultural practice depends on whose knowledge is valued, who gets to shape the questions, and who is recognised as an author of change. By bringing early career researchers across the UK and Ireland into sustained dialogue, Shared Authorship creates space to develop new approaches collectively, while building the relationships, evidence and vision needed to influence how cultural institutions work with communities in the future.”
Pro Vice-Chancellor of Education and Student Success
Circular Design Toolbox (CDT)
Funders: UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
Research Lead: Professor Sharon Baurley
Partners: Two Lives London (UK/Portugal)
The Circular Design Toolbox by the RCA’s Centre for Materials Science & Culture will translate research-backed circular materials, experience, and supply chain design tools into a commercially deployable service proposition to help UK apparel brands, municipalities, and compliance bodies to implement textiles circularity at scale and meet upcoming Textiles Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations.
“Building on its circular economy research, the Centre for Materials Science & Culture is taking steps to bridge academic innovation with actionable, scalable tools for industry to transition to a circular economy. The aim of this 9-month proof of concept project is to transform the Circular Design Toolbox into a commercially deployable service proposition that equips cross-sector stakeholders with actionable tools to design products, procurement, and consumer experiences. The CDT helps industry to cut waste and emissions while increasing value from reuse, repair and high-quality recycling and supporting a just transition in local communities.”
Director of the RCA’s Centre for Materials Science & Culture, and Professor of Design & Materials
Digital Heritage as Engineering Pedagogy: A Mixed Methods Study Using the Airships XR Learning Environment
Funders: British Academy Small Research Grant
Research Lead: Dr Atif Ghani
Partners: Bedford Creative Arts
Using a series of structured Airships XR learning sessions, this project will investigate how immersive digital heritage experiences can strengthen engineering learning, confidence and curiosity among young people.
“Our early findings from Airships XR suggest that immersive learning can do more than make engineering engaging; it can deepen understanding and help learners connect technical concepts to the wider social, historical and cultural contexts in which engineering operates. At the British Educational Research Association 2026 conference, I reported evidence that XR had a particularly strong impact on engineering awareness and understanding, especially when immersive experiences were anchored in meaningful heritage stories and supported by structured learning design. Through this new research, we hope to better understand how digital heritage can serve as a powerful pedagogical framework, shaping more inclusive, engaging and effective approaches to engineering education.”
Tutor (Research), Communication MFA, Associate Lecturer, Digital Narrative Arts MA/MFA, School of Communication and Design