“WEAVR: Pioneering Fully Integrated Cross-Reality Spectator Experiences in Esports and Beyond” is a £5.8 million R&D project aiming to radically transform audience experiences in esports (http://weavr.tv/). It is one of the four UK flagship demonstrators, funded from the Industrial Strategy’s Audience of the Future programme, aiming to establish the UK as world leading in the emerging forms of interactive and immersive storytelling (https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/audience-of-the-future-launch). It is led by ESL, the world’s largest esports company, and The University of York, which brings world‑class research in digital storytelling, games, AI and data analytics. The other WEAVR partners are top UK companies in studio TV production (Dock10), VR content development (Rewind), HD and 360 video (Focal Point VR) and data analytics (Cybula), making up a large interdisciplinary team of researchers, software developers, 2D & 3D artists, TV producers, game developers, designers, and market analysts. WEAVR’s research engine is based at The University of York in the Digital Creativity Labs (https://www.digitalcreativity.ac.uk/), a world centre of excellence for impact-driven research.

We are seeking an enthusiastic researcher to lead the development of tools and techniques to support interactive esports narrative experiences, in collaboration with a significant team of researchers, software developers, and esport producers. As the successful candidate, you will conduct research for collaborative projects and oversee the development of authoring tools that allow production teams to create new forms of immersive and data-driven esports narrative content. This will allow customisation of viewers’ experiences, either through their direct interaction (such as by selecting which character to follow in a battle, which depth of explanations to receive from commentators, or which aspects of the game to replay) or automatically (for example by taking into account their proficiencies, using their own game data). You will also write up research results and disseminate them through publications, seminar and conference presentations; contribute to the identification of possible new areas of research; and undertake appropriate administrative activities.

You will have a PhD in a programming-related field of Computer Science or Electronic Engineering or related qualifications. You will also have expertise in one of the following two areas: authoring tools in multimedia, games, e-learning, sound/music or related areas; or knowledge representation and reasoning, for example for interactive narratives, personalisation, automated content generation, or related areas. You will have a record of excellent research, reflected in high quality publications, and will bring an appetite for innovation across discipline boundaries and application domains. Good programming skills (e.g. C, C++, C#, Python, Java, Unity) accompanied by passion to develop working research prototypes is another essential requirement.

This post is a fantastic opportunity for you to develop your career in an area of high strategic importance for the creative industries.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

The University is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive community – a place where we can all be ourselves and succeed on merit. We offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement forums, campus facilities and services to support staff from different backgrounds.