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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: EP/S022325/1
Title: EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence (IGGI)
Principal Investigator: Cairns, Professor PA
Other Investigators:
Tokarchuk, Dr LN Lucas, Professor S Perez Liebana, Dr D
Drachen, Professor A Maxwell, Dr D Gow, Dr J
Cowling, Professor PI Colton, Professor S Deterding, Professor S
Flick, Dr C
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Amazon Autistica BBC
BetaJester Ltd Bossa Studios British Games Institute (BGI)
Carnegie Mellon University CBT Clinics COMIC
Cooperative Innovations Crowdicity deltaDNA (UK)
Digital Catapult Digital Jam Limited Dubit Limited
Durham, University of Electronic Arts (EA) Enigmatic Studios
ESL UK Falmouth University Fluttermind LLC
Fnatic Ltd Frontline VC Game Republic
Games for Good Georgia Institute of Technology Graz University of Technology
House of Commons Introversion Software Ltd Knowledge Transfer Network Ltd
Make It York Makemedia Metropolitan Autonomous University
Microsoft Monash University Moon Collider Ltd
New Moon Studios Nokia North Carolina State University
Northeastern University Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg Player Research Ltd
Revolution Software Ltd Riot Games RollingMedia Ltd
Science City York Screen Yorkshire Sony Interactive Entertainment
Southern Uni of Science and Technology Spirit AI Square Enix Limited
Stainless Games Ltd STEM Learning Ltd Symbolism Studios
Tactile Entertainment Tampere University (TAU) The AbleGamers Charity
The Creative Assembly The National Science and Media Museum The National Videogame Arcade
TIGA The Ind Game Dev Assoc Ltd TT Games Ltd Ubisoft Massive Entertainment
UK Games Talent and Finance CIC UKIE University Carlos III of Madrid
University of Applied Arts Vienna University of California, Irvine University of California, Santa Cruz
University of Geneva University of New South Wales University of Ontario Inst of Tech (UOIT
University of Sheffield University of Waterloo (Canada) Utrecht University
Women in Games Wooga GmbH Yokozuna Data
York Mediale Zooniverse
Department: Computer Science
Organisation: University of York
Scheme: Centre for Doctoral Training
Starts: 01 October 2019 Ends: 31 March 2028 Value (£): 6,695,170
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Artificial Intelligence Computer Graphics & Visual.
Human-Computer Interactions
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Healthcare Creative Industries
Information Technologies
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Panel DatePanel NameOutcome
07 Nov 2018 EPSRC Centres for Doctoral Training Interview Panel C – November 2018 Announced
Summary on Grant Application Form
Digital games have extraordinary economic, social and cultural impact. The industry is one of the fastest-growing in the world, larger than film or music, with revenues expected to increase from $138 billion in 2018 to $180 billion by 2021. 2.6 billion people worldwide play digital games (21 million in the UK), with an average age of 35 and equal numbers of females and males. The Wellcome Trust-sponsored game Senua's Sacrifice, made in the UK, won 5 Baftas for its interactive and educational portrayal of psychosis.

The UK games industry is a global leader - UK game sales are valued at £4.3bn with 12,000 people directly employed. The games industry is innovative and hungry for innovation - recent research breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have arisen through games research undertaken at Google DeepMind in the UK. Rolls Royce makes better jet engines using 3D technology pioneered in games. Games are leading the "data and AI revolution" of HM Government's 2017 Industrial Strategy.

Games have become a massive lever for social good through applied games for health, education, and science. The mobile game Pokémon Go added 144 billion steps to physical activity in the US alone. The Alzheimer's Research-funded Sea Hero Quest game collected data equivalent to 9,400 years of dementia lab data within 6 months.

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence (IGGI) first received funding in 2014, and has since been a huge success: raising the level of research innovation in games, with the highest-possible ratings in our EPSRC mid-term review. The next phase of IGGI will inject 60+ PhD-qualified research leaders and state of the art research advances into the UK games industry.

The two core themes of IGGI are:

(1) Intelligent Games: increasing the flow of research into games. IGGI PhD research in topics such as AI, data science, and design will empower the UK games industry to create more innovative and entertaining games. IGGI research has already enhanced the experience for millions of game players. IGGI will create engaging AI agents that are enjoyable to interact with, tackling fundamental challenges for the future of work and society that go beyond games. IGGI will spearhead new AI techniques that augment human creativity by automatically 'filling in the details' of human sketches.

(2) Game Intelligence: increasing the use of intelligence from games to achieve scientific and social goals. Every action in a digital game can be logged, creating huge data sets for behavioural science. For example, current IGGI students have assessed traits such as IQ, agreeableness, or attention from large game datasets. IGGI students will investigate more intelligent, adaptive games for education and to improve mental health. IGGI will maximize the enormous opportunity for scientific and social impact from games by laying the research groundwork for further data-driven applied games for health, science, and education.

IGGI will massively advance these research themes, and train 60+ PhD students to be future research leaders. To accomplish this, our updated training programme and 60+ research supervisors will provide students with rigorous training and hands-on experience in AI, programming, game design, research methods, and data science, with end user and industry engagement from day one. Recruiting and empowering a diverse student cohort to promote equality, diversity, and inclusion through games, IGGI will drive positive culture change in industry and academia. Students will work with leading UK experts to co-create and disseminate standards for responsible games innovation. Directly working with the UK games industry through placements, workshops, game development challenges, and an annual conference, they will advance research knowledge and translate it into social, cultural and economic impact.

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