BBC has announced the launch of its Audio Research Partnership, which is a joint initiative between BBC’s R&D operations and five of the UK’s leading universities to carry out audio and audio-visual research.

Tim Davie, BBC’s head of audio and music, announced the launch of the joint initiative in an event attended by members from industry and academia. Under the new partnership[p, the BBC will partner Surrey University for audio-visual research, Salford University for acoustics research and also Southampton, Queen Mary (University of London) and York.

The BBC has committed to the partnership for a period of five years. The BBC is aiming to develop its internal audio R&D activities through its new lab at MediaCity. The new approach will allow the company to support a new kind of academic collaboration.

The collaboration will allow the BBC to bring support for addressing some challenges and help produce solutions, which could be turned into services.