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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: EP/L015846/1
Title: EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games & Game Intelligence (IGGI)
Principal Investigator: Cairns, Professor PA
Other Investigators:
Latham, Professor W Gow, Dr J Cowling, Professor PI
Colton, Professor S Bartle, Professor R A Tanaka, Professor A
Ursu, Professor MF Lucas, Professor S Kruschwitz, Professor U
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
22cans AI Factory Ltd. AIGameDev
Blitz Games Studios Bossa Studios British Screen Advisory Council
BT Clicmobile SAS Codemasters
Crowdicity David Reeves Consulting Ltd Digital Catapult
DTS Licencing Ltd UK Electronic Arts Essex Age UK
Eutechnyx Forma Four Door Lemon Ltd
Game Republic Geomerics Ltd Hand Circus
Havok HerxAngels Imaginarium
INRIA Research Centre Saclay Int Game Developers Assoc IGDA IT University of Copenhagen
Kuato Studios UK Marmalade Game Studios UK Mental Health Foundation
Namaste Entertainment Polytechnic University of Milan Rebellion
Revolution Software Ltd ROLI Roll7
SAPO Portuguese Telecomms Science City York SideFX
Sony Interactive Entertainment Splashdamage Stainless Games Ltd
Supermassive Games Swrve New Media Tangentix
Technical University of Dortmund Technology Strategy Board (Innovate UK) Tendring District Council
The Creative Assembly The Tuke Centre TIGA The Ind Game Dev Assoc Ltd
Txchange Ukie (Interactive Entertainment Assoc) University of Iceland
University of Malta University of Twente Warsaw University of Technology
We R Interactive Ltd
Department: Computer Science
Organisation: University of York
Scheme: Centre for Doctoral Training
Starts: 01 April 2014 Ends: 31 July 2025 Value (£): 5,651,240
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Artificial Intelligence Computer Graphics & Visual.
Human-Computer Interactions Image & Vision Computing
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Creative Industries Information Technologies
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Panel DatePanel NameOutcome
23 Oct 2013 EPSRC CDT 2013 Interviews Panel I Announced
Summary on Grant Application Form
The digital games industry has global revenues of $65bn (in 2011) predicted to grow to $82bn by 2017. The UK is a major player, whose position at third internationally (behind the US and Japan) is under threat from China, South Korea and Canada. The £3bn UK market for games far exceeds DVD and movie box office receipts and music sales. Driven by technology advances, the industry has to reinvent itself every five years with the advent of new software, interaction and device technologies. The influential 2011 Nesta "Next Gen" review of the skills needs of the UK Games and Visual Effects industry found that more than half (58%) of video games employers report difficulties in filling positions with recruits direct from education and recommended a substantial strengthening of games industry-university research collaboration. IGGI will create a sustainable centre which will provide the ideal mechanism to consolidate the scientific, technical, social, cultural and cognitive dimensions of gaming, ensuring that the industry benefits from a cohort of exceptional research-trained postgraduates and harnessing research-led innovation to ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of innovation in digital games. The injection of 55+ highly qualified PhD graduates and their associated research projects will transform the way the games industry works with the academic community in the UK.

IGGI will provide students with a deep grounding in the core technical and creative skills needed to design, develop and deliver a game, as well as training in the scientific, social, therapeutic and cultural possibilities offered by the study of games and games players. Throughout their PhDs the students will participate in practical industrial workshops, intensive game development challenges and a yearly industrialy-facing symposium. All students will undertake short- and longer-term placements with companies that develop and use games. These graduates will push the frontiers of research in interaction, media, artificial intelligence (AI) and computational creativity, creating new game-themed research areas at the boundaries of computer science and economics, sociology, biology, education, robotics and other fields.

The two core themes of IGGI are:

Intelligent Games - increasing the flow of intelligence from research into digital games. We will use research advances to seed the creation of a new generation of more intelligent and engaging digital games, to underpin the distinctiveness and growth of the UK games industry. The study of intelligent games will be underpinned by new business models and research advances in data mining (game analytics) which can exploit vast volumes of gameplay data.

Game Intelligence - increasing the use of intelligence from games to achieve scientific and social goals. Analysis of gameplay data will allow us to understand individual behaviour and preference on a hitherto impossible scale, making games into a powerful new tool to achieve scientific and societal goals. We will work with user groups and the games industry to produce new genres of games which can yield therapeutic, educational and social benefits and use games to seed a new era of scientific experimentation into human behaviour, preference and interaction, in economics, sociology, psychology and human-computer-interaction.

The IGGI CDT will provide a major advance in an area of great importance to the UK economy and massive impact on society. It will provide training for the leaders of the next generation of researchers, developers and entrepreneurs in digital games, forging economic growth through a distinctly innovative and research-engaged UK games industry. IGGI will massively boost the notion of digital games as a tool for scientific research and societal good.

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Organisation Website: http://www.york.ac.uk