Backed by £2.2m in funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the hub will be open to researchers from academia and industry from the UK and globally, and Surrey staff and students.

The hub, ‘Aurora’ (Anechoic and universal research observation rooms for audio, acoustics and AI), will offer two audio environments – an anechoic chamber and a variable acoustics room.

The initiative aims to bring together the audio, acoustics and AI research community and foster developments in sound technology through more accurate modelling of the physical and perceptual phenomena involved in real-world hearing. 

Aurora will be hosted at Surrey’s Institute of Sound Recording, which is part of the School of Arts, Humanities and Creative Industries, and co-led with the University’s Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing (CVSSP).

The facilities will also work with the Surrey Institute for People-Centred AI and the CoSTAR National Lab. The hub is backed by a group of 18 partners and 12 key users, including the BBC, Meta, KEF, Imperial College London, the University of Cambridge, and non-profits including the Royal National Institute for Deaf People and the Institute of Acoustics. 

Enzo De Sena, professor and director of the Institute of Sound Recording (IoSR), said: “Aurora will create a national hub for excellence in sound and AI, allowing researchers to generate reproducible data, test innovations in controlled and lifelike environments, and shape technologies that benefit society.”