AGGR provides a reference point for the growing demand for cross-disciplinary research on and via games. The Research Group seeks to represent a reference point for researchers and partners interested in:
- games analysis and criticism,
- games-specific research methods,
- the development of applied games and immersive experiences,
- the use of design for education, social change, and equality
Our fields of application include education, public health, citizen science, and interdisciplinary, games-driven research.
Digital and traditional games are deeply imbedded in media and cultural forms and in our everyday, technologically mediated lives. They enjoy global dissemination and exert social impact at a range of scales. The cultural value of games and gaming practises, the challenges they raise, and their potential for education (game-based learning, but also the use of gamified techniques in the classroom), democracy (games for justice, serious games), and scientific research are increasingly recognised.
This landscape intersects with key challenges revolving around creativity and sustainability, development and access, equality and diversity. The complex anthropological dimension of play, coupled with the increasing size and implication of the gaming industries and of the pervasiveness of digital cultures and media, situates games at the core of a range of theoretical, social, cultural, and creative issues about identity, culture, equality in representation, and industrial sustainability.
Games and gaming practices offer outstanding chances for audience and community outreach and social, cultural, and economic impact at the global, national, and local scale, with regard to creativity and development, education, inclusivity and diversity, and citizen science. Games and gamified applications may include ‘serious’ games for social and cultural causes, educational games, hybrid games and installations involving immersive technologies, and play-driven citizen science and crowdsourcing projects. Games-driven research, as well as the use of games for outreach, can bring together researchers from the areas of Humanities, Social Sciences, and STEM.