New Media, Animation, and Games -- these technologies are the building blocks of the Digital Age. The Science, Technology and Innovation Council report in 2008 recognized this as a priority research sub-area within Canada's Science and Technology Strategy. This application responds to the needs identified in that report. The GRAND NCE will undertake a comprehensive research program whose goal is to understand the underlying technologies and to make selective advances in a coordinated, multidisciplinary setting that lead to social, legal, economic, and cultural benefits for Canadians.

This brings significant challenges because the ability to access, manipulate, and disseminate information in its various media forms radically changes on almost a daily basis. The research program will meet these challenges through a dynamic set of interconnected projects built on a conceptual framework of five themes. Three themes focus on the technology clusters identified by the Science, Technology and Innovation Council: (1) New Media Challenges and Opportunities, (2) Games and Interactive Simulation, and (3) Animation, Graphics and Imaging. The other two cross-cut the first: (4) Social, Legal, Economic and Cultural Perspectives, and (5) Enabling Technologies and Methodologies. Thirty projects each explore a different aspect of selected problems. Fifty Network Investigators lead projects, with Collaborating Researchers and Partners from the public and private sectors participating as domain experts and receptors to exploit the resulting new knowledge and technologies.

GRAND is guided by a vision of world-class, multidisciplinary research that is solution-driven and focused on complex questions in New Media, Animation, and Games where significant enabling technologies can be efficiently developed and effectively deployed. Others examine the consequences of new technologies for Canadian social, legal, economic, and cultural institutions. Strategies for public policy decisions -- on matters such as regulatory structures, intellectual property rights, privacy and security of personal identity and data, and Canadians' ability to express themselves artistically and culturally on the world stage -- will be explored.

Serious games, social networking, live performance augmented by digital technologies, Internet-enabled e-journalism, and mobile applications for work and play are obvious examples of problem domains to be explored. Less obvious but equally important are e-government and e-health services.

Benefits will be realized through creating new knowledge and technologies, training highly qualified personnel, creating wealth by exploiting the possibilities of New Media, Animation, and Games for economic growth, and improving the quality of life for Canadians. Technologies that improve healthcare, encourage sustainable lifestyles that honor and preserve the natural environment, and promote greater participation in public dialogue will be powerful benefits in the Digital Age.

Accelerating the exploitation of new knowledge and technology, GRAND will encourage, enable and support the rapid exchange of ideas between academic researchers and receptor communities. Special attention will be paid to the role of Entrepreneurs, and the need for Design, not just Engineering and Marketing, in every stage of the innovation pipeline to ensure that products meet the needs of their customers and services meet the needs of their clients.