Declan Keeney

Dr Declan Keeney is the Director of the Ulster Screen Academy at Ulster University, Belfast, Northern Ireland and is an award-winning filmmaker and academic.

-A member of the project board and technical lead on the Screen Media Innovation Lab, a £65m Virtual Production complex for Belfast. One of several Belfast Region City and Growth Deal innovation projects.

-A co-investigator on a landmark £13m, Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded partnership led by Ulster University entitled Future Screens NI. www.futurescreens.org

- Nearly 25 years of broadcast media experience, including 13 years as staff at the BBC.

-Declan's core research interests are the emerging areas of Virtual Production, XR and VR for film and broadcast real-time production pipelines.

-Creative Director at Island Hill Productions Ltd., an VR/XR/Film & Documentary production company based in Belfast, which he founded in 2017.

-Previously Subject Lead for Film Studies and Production at Queen's University Belfast.

-Previously a Senior Lecturer and Subject Lead in Broadcast Production. A department he established at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen's University Belfast in 2017


-Other research interests include the Screen Industries with a particular focus on developing talent pipelines from education to industry within the Screen Industries. In particular the real-time revolution and convergence of film production with immersive, 3D, VFX, gaming engines and animation.

-Principal Investigator for the Moving Image Arts Longitudinal Cohort Study, Funded by the Department of Communities & Northern Ireland Screen, 2019-2024

-Significant experience working in large scale grant-aided projects through funders such as the AHRC, PEACE III and PEACE IV.

-His latest project is a Virtual Reality documentary film funded through PEACE IV and managed by the Special European Union Programme's Body. The VR doc entitled 'Frictionless' is about the border in Ireland with contributions from victims and survivors of the Troubles.