Following discussions, commencing autumn 2007, between the Research Councils CEOs and thought leaders of MediaCityUK it was agreed that the opportunity presented by MediaCityUK at Salford Quays should be grasped by creating a powerful research and innovation alliance.

As a direct result a high quality partnership was built around the original CMI (The Cambridge - MIT Institute) team that created the MediaCityUK concept that brought the BBC to Salford. This core partnership was founded in 2009, and includes leading academics from across the country and industry experts from the digital creative media sector.

The FIRM consortium includes representation from the BBC, Goldsmiths - University of London, Lancaster University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Cambridge, University of Salford, and Vision+Media.

FIRM seeks to tackle challenges facing the digital creative media in the coming decades through promoting and facilitating transdisciplinary research and development, bridging the communication gap between academics and businesses to produce national and global impacts in the domains of theory, practice and policy through:

Driving major research initiatives that proactively transform the creative industry
Creating greater opportunities to promote SME ventures
Brokering cross-enterprise response to industry problems and opportunities
Enhancing the talent pool
And ultimately, providing value to the MediaCityUK‟s host city of Salford and surrounding regions
FIRM is funded by The UK Research Council’s Digital Economy Programme and supported by the Northwest Regional Development Agency.