GREAT Adventures: Successes from April - September 2024
April 2024
Project partners Katharina Koller and Barbara Kieslinger from ZSI raised interest with their poster titled “Game on: Exploring Game-Based Tools for Citizen Engagement in Climate Research Policy” at the 5th European Citizen Science Association Conference.
DIPF’s Jane Yau presented the GREAT project at the World Forum Women in Science – Theme: Science for the SDGs, at the session “Technology, Sustainability and Industry”, which included a number of initiatives of empowering women and underrepresented groups to take on science activities and careers to advance the SDGs. Jane shared the GREAT project findings in this session with a talk "Gaming for Change: Leveraging digital games to address climate change", based on the GREAT project methodology and first case study findings!
Led by our Project Asocciate Partner, Prof. Ahmed Tlili and Prof. Ronghuai Huang (and additional co-authors), a journal article relating to a study on how environmental perception affects players’ in-game behaviours, was published in Entertainment Computing at Elsevier.
May 2024
The North-West University (NWU), our Project Associate Partner, has launched a new educational card game called Prosper to celebrate World IP Day in 2024. The game is all about using intellectual property (IP) to teach people about the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Find out more.
From 7-10 May 2024, Jane Yau was at the International Conference of Young Scientists, held in conjunction with the Global Young Academy Annual Conference, and presented the GREAT project. This year’s theme was “Transformative and inclusive science for a sustainable future” and was held at the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in Washington D. C. Find out more.
During Earth Week, 22nd April 2024, GREAT partner Playmob's CEO Jude Ower (recently acquired by Sphaira Innovation and PlanetPlay) and PlanetPlay CEO Rhea Loucas led a delegation of games industry studios to the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) Climate Promise event at UN HQ in New York – an initiative to support countries as they increase their climate action contributions. These collaborative efforts aim to support the games industry in mobilising players to speak up on climate policy globally. The aim of the EU funded GREAT project is to provide the scientific underpinning and prove the methodology that games can be a highly effective platform for climate policy making. Find out more.
Find out what happens when two entrepreneurs / companies with the same passion on climate action get together. Read this exciting Forbes interview!
June 2024
Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen (Serious Games Interactive) was at a panel discussion named "Gaming for Culture and Society" at the Creative Business Cup 2024 Global Finals! Find out more.
We are super excited to announce that our GREAT project has been accepted as a finalist in the Falling Walls Summit Science Engagement 2024! Falling Walls is an international platform for leaders from the world of science, business and politics, arts and society. Our project has been accepted as 1 of 30 finalists. Great validation that games can be a groundbreaking way to impact climate policy decisions! With mass scale and the speed of participation (and a highly engaged global audience who care) we are proving that games we play every day can enable people to speak up, have their voices heard and change policy in new and fun ways. Find out more.
On 5-7 June, Jane Yau was at the IEEE Games, Entertainment and Media Conference last week in Torino, Italy (5-7 June), and shared GREAT project findings in three poster presentations below. Find out more.
- Co-designing pilot games with citizens and policy stakeholders to increase climate action
- Exploring the concept of mini data sprints as a methodology to assess data validity and stimulate climate conversation
- Empowering marketing management and gaming consuming interaction through AI and citizen science
Global Young Academy Magazine article published in June 2024
DIPF member and GREAT project manager, Dr. Jane Yau, is also a member of the Global Young Academy (2022-27), where its mission is giving a voice to young scientists around the world. In 2023-2024, she was the co-editor of the Connections Magazine, which is an annual magazine of the Global Young Academy, featuring peer-reviewed articles of its members.
This year’s magazine explores the theme “Transformation”. The magazine is additionally circulated at working events attended by the Global Young Academy office team, for example, those organised by The World Academy of Sciences and European Young Academies etc. As co-Editor-at-Large, Jane also wrote an article about “Educational and societal transformation to advance the UN SDGs”.
July 2024
Want to know how to use games to reach citizens to get their preferences for business, policy-making or other purposes??
Look no further - this Business Model document provides insights into the business aspects of the project. We look forward to receiving interest from a wide audience including European countries and beyond, games development studios, policy-makers and potential sponsors of activities wanting to build businesses around the use of games to link citizens in dialogue with policy makers or other types of actors. Read the report here.
A first policy insight briefing was released, which introduces initial insights from two innovative approaches aimed at leveraging games to promote social engagement and facilitate dialogue between citizens and policymakers. Particularly, it shows the collaboration efforts with global and national stakeholders, for example, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Urban Gorillas Cyprus, and the
Austrian Klimafonds, that we have been conducting a series of case studies with that focused on climate change. Read the Policy brief here.