Fiona Kilkelly

Head of Enterprise & Commercialisation

CoSTAR National Lab

Speaker Biography

Fiona Kilkelly is Head of Enterprise & Commercialisation at CoSTAR National R&D Lab and Professor of Creative Industries at Royal Holloway University of London. Fiona has worked at the nexus of innovation, technology and creative industries in the UK and Ireland, primarily leading large scale government supported innovation and R&D programmes for the UK’s Knowledge Transfer Network, Innovate UK, Regional Creative Industry Clusters, Audience of the Future Challenge and at StoryFutures Academy with NFTS. In 2016, Fiona founded Immerse UK, the UKs immersive technology network. Through this she has spearheaded the UK’s rapid acceleration into the immersive sector and triggered significant new public R&D funding into this space. In 2020, Fiona founded the XR Health Alliance, a cross industry organisation created to support and pioneer the power of XR in the health and creative sectors and has been Chair of Eirmersive, the Irish Immersive Tech Network until 2023. She has written multiple led industry ecosystem reports outlining the UKs capacity barriers and opportunities in immersive, digital and creative sectors, such as the first ever UK Immersive Economy Report in 2018 and 2019, the XR in Health in the UK report 2021, the StoryFutures Academy Virtual Production Skills report in 2021 and 2022, the Irish Immersive Economy Report 2022, the Irish Immersive Roadmap for Growth 2024 and Connect XR Audience Insight and Toolkit Report 2024.

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