Professor Gregor White

Professor of Applied Creativity and Director of Co-Star

Faculty Faculty of Design, Informatics and Business

Department Department of Games and Arts

Contact info

+44 (0)1382 30 8610

Biography

Gregor White is Dean of Design & Informatics and Professor of Applied Creativity. He has led the School of Design and Informatics since 2015 and has held a range of academic and managerial roles in the institution since 2004. Since his appointment as Head of School he has led a number of transformation projects to restructure the programme portfolio, develop a focused research strategy and has recently embarked on an estates transformation project for students and staff accommodation in the school. 

Gregor's research interests are in the area of digital interactive entertainment in relation to both product development and online audience innovation. He has studied online social media consumption from demographic and aesthetic perspective and has a specific interest in collaborative and participatory design and development processes. In 2017 he initiated and led funding bids to AHRC, Scottish and UK Governments to support the establishment of three collaborative research centers for Games (InGAME), Cyebersecurity (cyberQuarter) and AI/ML and Date Analytics (The Emergent Technology Centre). The success of these proposals represents an investment of around £40million in Dundee's digital economy.  Externally he is a member of the AHRC Strategic Review College, he is Co-Director of the Creative Economy Hub for the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities, and is a Management Board member of the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Association. 

He is currently Co-Director of InGAME: Innovation for Games and Media Enterprise. Most recently he has been Co-Investigator on Design Innovation for New Growth (AHRC) and has been Principal Investigator on Video Games in the Museum, an AHRC Video Games Network in partnership with the V&A Museum,  and Co-Investigator with Design in Action, an AHRC Knowledge Exchange Hub.

Previous research project leadership includes Principle investigator on the Moving Targets knowledge exchange project funded through the Scottish Funding Councils Spirit programme (SFC 2009). Moving Targets seeks to create an innovative and sustainable knowledge exchange mechanism, which fulfils the Scottish Creative Media sector's need to respond to the emerging market trends of global consumers by devising and developing new models to engage new audiences. Demand-led by industry, Moving Targets facilitates the flow of knowledge between the key researchers, producers, policy makers and consumers of Creative Media. http://www.participations.org/Volume%2010/Issue%202/contents.htm

Gregor is also Co-Investigator on an Intellectual Property Office innovation project concerned with the creation of an open IP platform for easy access to digital media products and assets generated through development and production projects in the University.  He supervised the research and compilation of Changing Business Models in the Creative Industries: The cases of Television, Computer Games and Music, for the IPO.

View Publications

Currently Gregor contributes subject expertise across a number of programmes and stages in the School of Design and Informatics and supervises PhD research in the Abertay Graduate School.

Supervised PhD Candidates

  • Lynn Parker - Designing Play Experiences: Play interventions for community and communal play.
  • ZuZanne Dominiak - Exhibiting Comics: Applying creative and technological solutions to the problems of displaying comic art in Mmuseums and visitor attractions.
  • Orion Mavradou - Playing outside the box: An investigation into videogame remix culture, economy and practices.
  • Sarah Morton - Establishing a hybrid methodology Model for co-designing behaviour change within the context of adventure Sport participation in Scotland.
  • Colin Gray - Online entrepreneurial development: A "Bite Sized" learning design model for optimum educational engagement in entrepreneurs.
  • Christopher Lowthorpe – Making It? Development methodologies, adaptability and organisational sustainability in independent games development.

Gregor also contributes to a number of educational programmes with other institutions. As a Honorary Lecturer at St Andrews University he contributes to the delivery of the M.Litt in Managing in the Creative Industries in the University’s School of Management.  He is a visiting lecturer with the European Cross Media Academy at the Danish Film School in Copenhagen, and delivers lectures and workshops as part of  the BBC Production Masters programme.

More Information

Funding

2016 AHRC Follow-On. Design Innovation for New Growth

2015 AHRC ARC Studentship

2014 AHRC Creative Economy Showcase Grant

2014 AHRC Video Games Research Network Grant

2013 ESRC Student Placement Award

2012 Intellectual Property Office Fast Forward Award

2012 Creative Scotland Innovation Fund - Creative Scotland

2012 ESRC Collaborative Research Studentship

2010 Moving Targets - Scottish Funding Council

2010 European Cross Media Academy – Media II

2008 Capacity Building Award -  ESRC (Collaborative bid)

2007 BBC Prototype – Scottish Enterprise /BBC Scotland/UAD

2005 Knowledge Transfer Partnership Visual Science Ltd - Department of Trade and Industry

Outreach

Outreach

2018 - STV News interview. Abertay/Perfect World Agreement

2018 - The Scotsman interview.

2018 - The Sunday Herald interview.

2017 - Scottish Government Cultural Policy Consultation Theme Leader.

2017 - Innovation in the Creative Industries: The role of Higher Education. Edinburgh University

2016 - UKIE Games Roundtable

2015 - The Gadget Show, Channel 5

2015 - Lunchtime News, BBC Radio Scotland

2015 - Edge Magazine Interview

2015 - Public Lecture, National Musem of Scotland

2015 - Good Morning Scotland Interview, BBC Radio Scotland

2014 - Edge Online Interview

2014 - The Guardian.com VG247 Online Debate

2013 - Wired.co.uk Video Games in the Museum

2013 - Edge Magazine Class of PS4

2012 - STV Interview. Dare to Be Digital

2011 - Dundee Arts Café How Audiences Influence the Design of Online Media

2010 - Games tools for Teens, Dare ProtoPlay

2007 - 6 Cities Design Festival ‘8-Bit An Beyond’ Computer Games Retrospective

2007 - Commercialising Learning Spaces, Digital Dundee Conference.

2006 - Our Dynamic Earth ‘Journey through the Centre of the Earth’ Animation Production

2004 - ‘GigaJig’ Combined Actual/ Virtual Performance and Website. Dundee Rep Theatre

Meet the rest of the team

Mr Alexander Tarvet

Mr Alexander Tarvet

Department of Games and Arts | Lecturer

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Dr David Lyons

Dr David Lyons

Department of Games and Arts | Lecturer

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