Royal Holloway is a University of London college with a world-class reputation for developing original research. Royal Holloway’s Media Arts Department consists of 21 teaching and research staff and a technical team of 6. The department has almost 500 students, including 20 doctoral candidates. The department has very close links with archives and broadcasters and extensive experience of online archive access projects. Professor John Ellis is currently Chair of the British Universities Film and Video Council (BUFVC) and is on the steering committee for Chronicle, a joint project between BBC, JISC and BUFVC which presents politically sensitive BBC archival material to academic users and invites their annotations. Previously he was on the steering committee for Newsfilm Online, creating online access to 6,000 hours of television news content.
The department has also hosted an academic consultation on the television preservation policy of the BFI National Archive and also played a key role in research and development activity between BBC New Media, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the wider academic community. The Department has particular research expertise in television history, and several members of staff who have had and continue to have careers in the television industry. Royal Holloway Media Arts was responsible for the development of the content selection policy for the EU funded Video Active and EUscreen projects. The Department also participates in the organisation of several research networks including the European Television History Network, the Southern Broadcasting History Group, and the University of London Screen Studies Consortium.