The Broadcasting VCE [Virtual Centre of Excellence]

The Digital VCE is an R&D consortium of leading companies and universities working in fields of broadcasting and multimedia, a company limited by guarantee: registered as Virtual Centre of Excellence in Digital Broadcasting and Multimedia Technology Ltd., sponsored and supported by the UK Department of Trade and Industry. In 1995, the Technology Foresight Panel Report on Communications argued that the UK´s research effort in certain key fields was unduly dispersed. The Report recommended that at least two Virtual Centres of Excellence be set up with government support, one in “mobile and personal communications systems”, and another in “multimedia and digital signal processing”. As a result the Mobile VCE and Digital VCE were established in 1996 and 1997 respectively, both with DTI and/or EPSRC support. The Digital VCE receives its core support directly from the DTI