The Centre's initial research plan addresses two main issues. The first is primarily historical and focuses on archival collections. If our research is going to open out new areas of scholarship, the use of collections is a key consideration. For archives, at this present moment, the issue of academic, and other, access is also of the essence. The Centre intends to foster a two-way traffic between the communities, especially looking for innovative and unexpected uses for forgotten or neglected archival material. The second issue that the Centre will address is primarily contemporary and focuses on government policy and the cultural and economic priorities embodied in forthcoming communications legislation.

The Industrialisation of Culture: Pre and Early British Cinema

• The Early Film Business in London, 1894-1914
• Screen Practice before Film

Public Service, Independence and Innovation in Film and Television

• The British Avant-garde, Abstract and Experimental Cinema 1960 to the Present
• British independent and experimental film: multiple influences and ‘specific identity’
• Technological Change and British Television Aesthetics: the 60s/early 70s
• British Television Drama of the 1960s, 70s and 80s

Aspects of Film and Television History: the Indigenous and the Exportable, the National and the Regional

• Regional and national audio-visual policy in Ireland and Northern Ireland
• The regional archives and film and media history
• Policy related research on the indigenous and the exportable in British film and media