Fabrizio Galeazzi

I am Professor in Heritage and Creative Technologies and Director of StoryLab at Anglia Ruskin University. Additionally, I serve on the academic board of the Innovate UK Immersive Tech Network. I hold a degree in archaeology at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, and I obtained a PhD in Digital Heritage at the University of California, Merced.

With over 20 years of experience, I am an internationally recognised expert in researching the impact of creative technologies and digital innovation on social change, cultural participation and heritage revitalisation and sustainability. My work explores the integration of 3D interactive visualisation, immersive technologies (VR, AR, MR) and digital infrastructures with multimodal storytelling for heritage preservation and revitalisation, community engagement and sustainable development.

Central to my approach is fostering community engagement and empowering marginalised voices. I apply rapid prototyping, speculative design, and agile creative practice methodologies to my research to explore, reflect on, and evidence the connections between digitally reproduced tangible heritage and communities’ identities and values (i.e., intangible heritage).

I have acted as academic advisor of several SMEs and international organisations and developed several knowledge transfer partnerships. These collaborations include the KTP-Innovate UK 'Immersive Antarctica' project (https://storylabresearch.com/projects/immersive-antarctica/) in collaboration with UK Antarctic Heritage Trust and the UNESCO Network for Mediterranean Youth, aimed at equipping partner youth organisations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region with new IT skills to support their engagement for the protection and promotion of cultural heritage. These partnerships have promoted knowledge exchange and collaborations between academia and various organizations across strategic areas, including:

1. Creative Technologies and Immersive Storytelling: I am currently leading the REVIVE project (Community-centred language revitalisation powered by heritage-led storytellling and digital innovation in Europe: https://revive-horizon.eu/), a Horizon Europe-funded programme of research aimed at promoting more meaningful and democratic use of 3D immersive technologies in Europe. The project will explore the integrated use of Extended Reality (XR) technologies, data visualisation and archival research for the protection of Europe’s heritage and linguistic capital to avoid cultural dilution, strengthen European identity, culture and creativity, and promote mutual understanding and social inclusion in Europe.

2. Digital Innovation and Participatory Research for Culture, Heritage and Sustainability: I am exploring the use digital innovation and heritage-led interventions for the sustainable regeneration of urban and rural areas. This is achieved through the adoption of culture-led solutions and community empowerment. A key example of this is the 'Let’s Go Fly the Kite' project (https://storylabresearch.com/projects/lets-go-fly-the-kite/), funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and developed in collaboration with Together Culture. This citizen science project explores the history of the Kite area in Cambridge and aims to create a roadmap for how its residents and visitors can build upon their heritage to shape its future. The project seeks to foster new citizen-led enterprises, beginning with the creation of a community digital archive and an interactive history platform, developed and delivered by StoryLab.