Peacegaming: how can games be leveraged to support peacekeeping?

This Research & Knowledge Exchange Doctoral Project brief summarises our priority areas of research interest under the heading of: Peacegaming: how can games be leveraged to support peacekeeping? 

We welcome all research degree applications aligned with and in response to this brief.

Peacegaming explores the essential question how can games be leveraged to support peacekeeping? This encompasses games and playful practice of all kinds, and has relevance to diverse stakeholders including the military, NGO’s, Game developers, and peace studies scholars.  

This research will investigate peacegaming through the lens of conflict resolution, climate change or both of these arenas. It will comprise elements of practice-based research across different platforms formulating, prototyping and testing games alongside and through research questions as interventions to raise awareness, effect change and tell stories. Ideally it will also involve co-design activities with stakeholders and help refine the formula for this approach which Falmouth has established over several research projects. Practicable knowledge of game markets and design/production to reach them is also desirable, alongside having used these processes to create games. Key research questions comprise:  

• What does contemporary peacegaming practice look like? 
• How can games and games technology support peacekeeping? 
• How can we evaluate different design and theoretical approaches to peacegaming through the lenses of conflict resolution and / or climate change? 
• What value can co-design have in the development of peacegaming?  
• How do representations and simulations of conflict resolution and /or climate change in games affect players’ understanding of these areas’ “reality?” 
• To what extent can the reality of climate change and/or conflict resolution be understood through the conceptual frameworks of the real, the symbolic, and simulacra? 
• How might games promote a more peaceful approach to resolving conflict? 
• What opportunities for impact can peacegaming interventions provide, and how would they operate? 

Projects deriving from this brief are expected to sit within the Research & Knowledge Exchange strategy and the following department.

All successful research degree project proposals must emphasise a clear alignment between the project idea and our Research & Knowledge Exchange strategy.