The ACES project (UKRI-ESRC GCRF, 2020-2023, Principal Investigator): ACES, funded under the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), is building on the empathic and inclusive playful and gameful research and practice of Coventry University’s award-winning GameChangers initiative and its sister initiative – CreativeCulture in Malaysia. In the ACES project, we are investigating the impact of transformative education through playful approaches and experiences towards developing social resilience, targeting young people in Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Collaborating with three other universities these three countries. Project outcomes will be translated into policy and practice recommendations.
CreativeCulture 4.0 (UKRI-AHRC, 2020-2021, Principal Investigator): CC4.0 is funded under the Newton Fund Impact Scheme and aims to broaden and extend the impact of experiential learning through play and gamification as a creative,emphatic and inclusive pedagogical practice in Malaysia towards Education 4.0 responding to Industry 4.0. The project builds on a previous collaboration between Coventry University(CU) and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak(UNIMAS) via the Newton CreativeCulture project, which has produced a blueprint for Gamification for STEM education that includes a suite of playful pedagogical tools and gamified lessons created by teachers for teachers. We identified that sustainable and effective adoption can be achieved by enabling teachers to embed the approach in the curriculum and the empowerment of schools to review, redesign and progress their practices.We will train around 400 teachers in playful and game-based learning towards adoption in the curriculum.
e-DigiLit – an Erasmus+ project – to be updated
Escape Racism – an Erasmus_ project – to be updated
BEACONING (EU H2020, 2016-2019, Coordinator): The project is looking into supporting anytime anywhere learning by promoting a more pervasive, contextualised and gamified teaching and learning. This project will potentially provide insight into engagement with students within the context of STEM looking at the pervasive and gamified approach.
Crowd4Roads – C4Rs (EU H2020, 2016-2019, Partner): An innovative H2020 initiative combining smart sensing, ride sharing and gamification applications to harness collective intelligence for providing open data towards boosting traffic conditions on the continent and raising awareness on eco-sustainability issues.
The GameChangers programme (co-founder, 2014 – current): A programme set up for embedding playful and gameful methodologies in teaching and learning. I co-founded the GameChangers concept with Helen Keegan in 2015 as a response to the increasing interest in the use of games and gamification in education. The trans-disciplinary and holistic model for game design and development that I developed has been used to inform the investigation of design thinking pedagogy based on game development. Being a first mover in HE and specifically in Coventry, activities within this strand have produced practice initiatives, which is mainly focused in the shift towards design based learning with learners developing their own gameful solutions, and with that a cultural shift from provision to production, empowering learners to use open and connected approaches to game design, influenced by design sprints and design thinking. GameChangers has grown to gradually absorb other game-based activities responding to custom requests and helping to develop particular faculty- and course- specific interventions, as well as incorporating flipped and Lego Serious Play (LSP) approaches in sprints.
Mobile GameChangers and CreativeCulture (HEFCE, NEWTON 2017-2019, Principal Investigator): Spin off from the GameChangers initiative (gamify.org.uk) to develop, implement and pilot game design thinking for creative and inclusive education in the UK as well as in Malaysia. The HEFCE GameChangers has now been absorbed into the main GameChangers initiative and CreativeCulture official website is here.
Cultural Risk – CULT_RISK (ErasmusPlus, 2018-2020, Partner): The objective of the project is to identify the cultural risks in the organisation, to identify behaviours, which cause these risks and to develop methods how to cope with cultural risks in order the organisation operate as efficient as possible. Our role is to create the online hub for training resources, populated with creative resources informed by gamified approaches- including narrative and comic based resources, interactive videos and VR- dialog based mini-activities.
BOND (EU H2020, 2017 -2020, Co-Investigator): BOND’s general objective is to directly contribute to unleash, strengthen, and organise, the great potential for collective action and networking of individuals, groups and entities of farmers and land managers in selected countries across Europe, with a view to creating strong, dynamic and effective organisations that have a voice and a place in policy design. Through the benefits of working with others, extending interactions with multiple actors, the project will help foster human well-being, the management of landscapes, agricultural growth and a vigorous social capital throughout Europe.
Pegaso (EU FP7, 2013-2017, Named Co-investigator): The PEGASO project will develop a multi-dimensional cross-disciplinary ICT system that will exploit sophisticated game mechanics to motivate behavioural changes towards healthier lifestyles and prevent overweight and obesity in the younger population.
MAGELLAN (EU FP7, 2014-2017, Named Co-Investigator): MAGELLAN’s overall vision is to enhance the creativity of people by establishing a web platform for cost-effectively authoring, publishing, executing, and experiencing location based games. This unique integrated web-based infrastructure will be targeted at both skilled professional authors, but also at everyday authors without deep technical skills. MAGELLAN will be underpinned by scientific research into the principles and technologies of creative and location-based experiences in order to ensure that the platform is innovative while also extending our broader scientific understanding of creativity. I am a named co-investigator on the project.
Playing For Real – Gamification for Hard-To-Reach (EU Erasmus+, 2014-2016, Knowledge Partner)– Research and practice on the use of gameful design in engaging the hard-to-reach group.
Games and Learning Alliance – GALA (EU FP7, Oct 2010 – Dec 2014): The GALA network aims to shape the scientific community and build a European Virtual Research Centre (VRC) aimed at gathering, integrating, harmonizing and coordinating research on Serious Games and disseminating knowledge, best practices and tools as a reference point at an international level.
PR:EPARe (2010-2012, Development Lead) Development of a game for Relationships and Sex Education (RSE). PR:EPARe stands for Positive Relationships: Eliminating Coercion and Pressure in Adolescent Relationships.
Sylvester Arnab 