Halvårsrapport / February 2012 GAMING & SOCIAL INNOVATION

"I realize very well that the reader has no great need to know all this; but I need to tell him" Rousseau, Les Confessions

INTRODUCTION

The research project focuses on computer games developed with the purpose of creating game experiences and gamer networks that empower gamer-driven real-life social innovation. In other words, the games are supposed to enable players to produce positive change in the physical world. Central to the games researched is that they are all social network games1 and part of their empowerment strategy is to enable players to form heterogeneous networks where they can share and develop knowledge and co-innovate. The intended result of the games should therefore be regarded as the product of a networked innovation process between gamers.

One example of such a social innovation game (SI-game) is Urgent Evoke. Urgent Evoke is developed by the World Bank in co-operation with game developer Jane McGonigal. The aim of the game is to give the players ‘unique innovation superpowers’ and build sustainable social networks among players, where knowledge and ideas can be exchanged and developed collectively. Knowledge and ideas that can generate innovative solutions to wicked problems like poverty and hunger. The game is structured as a ten-week crash course in social innovation. During the ten weeks players are taken through ten missions and quests. At the end of the game players face the ultimate challenge: The Evokation. An ‘Evokation’ is a plan of action and in Urgent Evoke it is a clear description of an innovative social project that the player wants to take on outside the game. The 20 best players are rewarded with online mentorships given by experienced innovators and business leaders from all over the world, seed money for their project and travelling scholarships.

Urgent Evoke and the other SI-games that will be researched in this project are continuing and adding to a longer line of serious games2. While serious games most often focus on the training of or transfer of knowledge to players, the SI-games of this project wants to engage players in finding innovative solutions for real life problems. It is therefore no longer just a question of building up competences or transferring knowledge to players, it is very much about developing innovative solutions to real social problems. By working for clients like the World Bank or e.g the municipality of Boston, USA and by turning their attention to the problems of the physical world, and proclaiming to be able to empower players with the tools, knowledge, skills, social network and motivation to deal with those problems, the game developers behind the games in focus ignite a – to the game industry - new discussion concerned with politics and power.

1 Social Network Games are multiple player games that urge players, who initially may not know each other, to form networks and help each other solve the missions and quests of the game.2 Serious games is a type of game (not a genre) where dealing with serious questions comes first and entertainment second.

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In my research project, I will take a closer look at the promises made by the game developers of some of the SI-games available. At one hand, I am very hopeful about the potentials of games as a tool for collective gamer-driven real-life social innovation. I believe that gaming in many ways have proven its strength as a communication tool that can capture the imagination of players and engage people in political question (Jansz & Neys, 2010) as well as strengthen the knowledge, skills and self confidence of players empowering them to take on quests and missions that they themselves did not believe that they could master (note xx). We all ready know that games can bring people together and make them form new networks capable of reaching greater common goals (note XX). These and more capacities of games are powerful tools when the goal is to make gamers take on social innovation projects and start changing the real world, and in my view there is therefore good reason to believe in the bottom-up social innovation potential of games.But (as a researcher you must all ways have a ‘but’), I also see some potential challenges connected to the promises of gamer-driven social innovation. First of all, I am wondering if it is possible to transport skills, capacities, capitals and innovations developed in a game environment into the physical world? Secondly, The SI-games in focus are all initiated and owned by organisations (e.g. World Bank or the Municipality of Boston, USA) with the purpose of engaging gamers in social problems and making them come up with innovative solutions. That raises questions about power. Because, who decides which ideas are good, who has the power and the right to further develop and give life to the ideas when the game is over? And who are the players of these games, what are their motivations for playing, what forms of power do they gain through the games and how are their innovations going to influence the lives of other people in the physical world? These are just a small example of the many questions that the games provoke along with the hopes that they awake. These questions (and many more) are what make me curious about the SI-games. I will not be able to answer them all in my dissertation, and I am therefore at the moment struggling to narrow things down and find a focus. A step in this process is to formulate a central research question. At the moment I am working with the following question:

What are the problems and potentials of on-line social network SI-games

as a tool for gamer-driven social innovation?

In the following, I tell a short history of the development in the gaming industry and in the conditions surrounding it. It is in no way an attempt to make a comprehensive account, but it is a first rough sketch of the background of the project, meant to illustrate why the chosen SI-games represents an interesting development worth spending three years of research on. Secondly, I will try to unfold some of the points made above and explain some of the preconceptions that form my approach to the field. Further more, I will account for my method and my dissemination plans. These initial paragraphs will be followed by a budget. As and time/research schedule.

KEYWORDS: Gaming / social innovation / heterogeneous social networks / empowerment / democracy

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PAWING THE WAY FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION GAMING

In the following I will tell a short story about some of the developments in and around the gaming industry. The purpose of the story is to make a rough sketch of the historical background of the SI-games in focus so that it becomes clearer to the reader why I see these games as signs of an industry moving to the next level. A level where the game turns political and we are playing for real.

The story behind the SI-games in focus is the story of an industry maturing, a target group diversifying and a content getting more complex. What started out, as very simple ping-pong or shooter games (NAME THEM) developed by students on the mega computers of American universities is today a million-dollar industry - an industry growing at a high pace. PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that the gaming industry in 2012 creates a lager turnover than both the music and the film industry3. And just as the industry it self has been maturing and diversifying, so has the gamer population. So, if you think that gamers are most often pale teenage boys with bad skin and poor social skills you have to read the following very carefully. Today the average (American) gamer is 37 years old, has 12 years of game experience and has been playing for about 10.000 hours (equivalent to the amount of hours Danish children receive in public school). 40 percent of all gamers are women and one out of four players is above 504. Every month 407 million hours are spent on gaming worldwide and most gamers expect to be playing all their life. This development means that a broad section of the population is gaming and that gaming is here to stay5.

Maybe it is the growing financial strength of the industry or the growing diversity of the gamer population or the creative capacity of the game developers – I do not know - but games are receiving a growing recognition as a medium to reckon with. In July 2011 the industry got the word of the American Supreme Court that games are a medium in the same right as books, plays and movies:

“Like the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them,video games communicate ideas—and even social messages—

through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music)and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world).”

(Supreme Court of the United States, Brown, Governor of California, et al. v. Entertainment Merchants Association et al., Argued November 2, 2010—Decided June 27, 2011)

The verdict recognizes that video games today are sophisticated communication tools, utilizing the same story-telling instruments as other medias but the verdict also acknowledges that games have their own distinct way of conveying a message. Even though it doesn’t influence the development

3 http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2008/06/gaming-expected-to-be-a-68-billion-business-by-2012.ars4 The numbers are as stated from the American market. I suppose that the Danish game market is a bit different, but I have until now been unable to find any equivalent material for Denmark.5 http://www.theesa.com/facts/gameplayer.asp (The Entertainment Software Association)

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in gaming industry directly, I see the Supreme Court verdict as an endorsement of games, that tells us something about the level of cultural penetration and acceptance that games have reached.

And next to making serious money, drawing an growing audience and gaining recognition from even a conservative institutions such as the Supreme Court, the gaming industry is also developing a more and more sophisticated and diversified content. What started as a couple of 2-dimesional one-person games is today a mega industry offering several genres of games, with complex 3D graphics, epic stories and massively-multi-player environments. And from the 60’ties to today the games have moved from being only playable on the mega-computers of American universities, to arcade machines to now being in our homes and pockets accessible via phones, Ipads and laptops. And just as many books, plays and movies, there are games that offer us a break from our daily life and a bit of easy digestible entertainment and there are games that wants us to learn about, engage in and reflect on the wicked problems surrounding us. Today games are, among others things, being used for creating and maintaining social networks, developing new skills, getting a personal experience with complicated political issues, helping scientific researchers produce data and as something relatively new – creating gamer-driven social innovation.

The reasoning behind the new SI-games is that some of the 407 million hours concentrated work, cognitive efforts and emotional engagement that gamers are investing weekly in gaming could be translated into positive changes and bottom-up social innovation in the physical world. The game developers want to hack in on the motivation, engagement and joy that people are experiencing while playing to find answers to some of the social challenges that we are facing today. So instead of letting gamers take on an identity of Death Nights or Warlocks raiding, exploring and fighting monsters, these new games are meant to help players develop ‘social innovation super powers’ and engage in finding innovative solutions to complex social challenges like e.g. poverty, urban development problems or climate change.

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SOCIAL INNOVATIONThis project is concerned with social innovation. Social innovation is one of those concepts that we all easily talk about, but when asked to define what we actually mean we start to feel the solid ground under our feet turn into quicksand. In the following, I will therefore try not to get my feet wet by defining the concept, instead I will refer to some of the definitions that others are giving and look for similarities and differences and thereby map the different positions and critically discuss the implications of these positions. At this stage the following is a first attempt to start this mapping – a work that I will continue through desk as well as field research. In my field research I will ask different actors connected to the project (game developers, game owners, municipality directors and employees) for their definition. By mapping and comparing the theoretical definitions with the definitions of the practioners I will make it possible to show what definitions lies behind the SI-games in focus and how these definitions create barriers or openings for different types of gamer-driven social innovation.

Social innovation consists – obviously - of two words: social and innovation. Let us start with the word innovation. Innovation is a slippery thing to deal with.

We can e.g. talk about product innovation, technical innovation or process innovation. Often, definitions of innovation include notions of economical aspects: making something new that can be marketed and which will change, if not peoples lives, than at least the market itself. Sometimes innovations are radical, meaning really new and never seen before, but sometimes what is defined as an innovation is in it self not new, but only new to the setting where in it is implemented. As the previous five phrases show there are many different starting points, which creates many different perspectives on and definitions of innovation.

Then you might think that adding social to the concept will narrow things down and reduce the complexity. Well, not exactly. Social innovation is concerned with the conditions for human life and the social systems that are framing the way we live. The concept of social innovation is in itself not new. It can be argued that it has been there as long as human beings have been trying to improve their living conditions6. But despite its old age, and the theoretical and political attention it has received in the past ten years, it still remains a field that is at an early stage of development, with relatively little established knowledge or practice7. Some of the existing initiatives concerned with social innovation are:

Mindlab8 A Danish cross-ministerial development unit. Formed in 2002 Social Entrepreneurship: A Masters program at Roskilde University. Introduced in 2005

The British Young Foundation: A think-tank for social innovation. Initiating SI-projects, advisors to the Labor Government and producing a range of books and articles about their work. Established in 2005

Social Innovation Generation: a research centre, University of Waterloo in Canada. Opened in 2007 Foundation for Social Innovation: a research foundation created by Barack Obama. Founded in 2010

These are just a small handful of examples of initiatives, many similar initiatives could be found

6 http://www.youngfoundation.org/about-us/introduction/developing-social-innovation-field7 http://www.youngfoundation.org/about-us/introduction/de8 MindLab is focusing on involving businesses and the civil society in social innovation

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around the world. The reason that social innovation is getting a growing amount of attention is maybe that politicians, as well as profit/non-profit organizations are experiencing that resources are running scarce. We therefore have to find more sustainable solutions to problems ranging from dealing with an ageing population to finding ways to feed the whole world (Junge & Lustrup, 2009). And maybe SI-games could be an answer, or at least part of an answer.So as I said in the beginning of this section, I am not going to give one clear definition of the concept, but instead I introduce some of the definitions that can be found and highlight the nuances of differences between them. In the following I will begin with three definitions that show some of the differences that can be found.

The Young Foundation in the UK is an international influential organization, thinking, writing and promoting ways of facilitating social innovation. The Young Foundation work with the following definition of social innovation: “new ideas (products, services and models) that simultaneously meet social needs (more effectively than alternatives) and create new social relationships or collaborations”9 In this definition social innovation is a new answer to a social need that also creates new social relationships. A definition similar to that of the Young Foundation, but with a little twist, can be found on Wikipedia. They write, “Social innovation refers to new strategies, concepts, ideas and organizations that meet social needs of all kinds – from working conditions and education to community development and health - and that extend and strengthen civil society”10. The Wikipedia definition is, just as the Young Foundation, concerned with relieving needs, but it also explicitly indicates that social innovation should strengthen the civil society. The Wikipedia definition introduces a bottom-up/empowerment approach as an important factor in social innovation. The idea of strengthening civil society can also to be found in the games that will be researched. In the games, different strategies are being used to empower people to become real-life social innovators - regardless of their social background, age, gender, religious affiliation etc.But then Frances Westley introduces a different way of defining social innovations. Westley is a scholar at the University of Waterloo in Canada where she holds the JW McConnell Chair in Social Innovation. Westley defines social innovation in the following way: “Social innovation is an initiative, product or process or program that profoundly changes the basic routines, resource and authority flows or beliefs of any social system”11. This definition is very different from those of the Young Foundation and Wikipedia. Instead of focusing on finding an answer to a specific need, social innovation in Frances Westley’s version is much more concerned with changing the structures of the social systems. In Frances Westley’s version creating relief does not count as a social innovation if the structures creating the problem are not changed. It could be argued that the SI-games in focus try to create that type of structural changes. By empowering players to become real-life social innovators, the games might create a new level of social actors that can not only create relief, but who will fundamentally change the power structures of socio-political field outside the game.

As my first simple account above shows there are great differences in what is defined as social

9  http://www.youngfoundation.org/our-work/social-innovation10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_innovationstill11  http://sig.uwaterloo.ca/highlight/the-social-innovation-dynamic

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innovation. In my research project I will unfold this discussion further. I will not create my own definition, but draw a map of different definitions. This map will be created on the basis of a literature review and interviews with key practioners from the six municipalities (Billund, Middelfart, Fredericia, Kolding, Vejen og Vejle) connected to the project as well as the game developers and initiators behind the researched games. The map is supposed to make it possible to discuss the type of social innovations the games can realize and what implications that has. Here my personal interests in bottom-up process, democratic learning, empowerment and development is going to play a role. I have since my master study had an interest in exploring how to make it possible for ordinary people to have as much influence at possible on their own living conditions. This project is part of that exploration. So personally, I am more interested in the definitions of social innovation that includes empowerment and changes in the beliefs and division of resources and power within the social system. In the following I will there make a first attempt to explain what preconceptions of empowerment and democracy I bring with me into the project and how I connect these conceptions to the researched games.

DEMOCRACY AND EMPOWERMENTThe researched games have in my perspective moved gaming in to political field, which makes it interesting to look at the democratic potentials of the games. During my masters study I have started a search for a democratic learning space, allowing for ordinary people to become empowered and take part in the political discussions and developments shaping their lives and living conditions. Even though, I see my search as a search for utopia, it is a quest that inspires my ongoing professional development and learning. I the following I will explain what images of democracy that governs my search for this utopia and why I keep seeing it as an utopia, further more I will show how the games in focus contain the same duality

In my view a democratic society should strive for having a participatory democraty. That means that I subscribe to a definition of democracy as more than what is happening at Christiansborg or our gathering around the ballot box at election time. Participatory democracy is a form of democracy that is dependant on interpersonal relations – it is lived and created every day in our social relations and social practices, it is concerned with how we live our daily life together and the possibilities that we get and give each other for expressing our selves and playing a part in shaping our own living conditions and society at large. Participatory democracy is a form of democracy that requires that the developments in and challenges of society is constantly being discussed and that all citizens develop the skills and capacities needed to act as equal participants in the discussion despite their different resources and social starting point. (Kaare Nielsen 1998).

Very central to my short description of the definition of participatory democracy are the words ‘strive for’. To every definition of democracy belongs a long discussion of who is included and how the obligations and benefits, power and resources are distributed among the different actors. In participatory democracy many obligations and most of the power should be in the hands of the citizens. And I find that an ideal to strive for, certainly not a given and maybe even a utopia. In a Foucault inspired way I would say that in reality democracy is a continuous play for power. Meaning

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that obligations and benefits, power and resources are never equally distributed among citizens, and that the distribution of these is a constant object for battles between different actors in the social field. But if the ideal is a participatory democracy I see an important role of the state in empowering citizens to take active part in all levels of democracy and create different arenas for participation. In other words, central too the strive for participatory democracy is the creation of arenas for participation and the empowerment of citizens. And I see in the SI-games researched the potential of such an arena and in the game play the possibility for an empowerment process.

I know that I will have to challenge and theoretically underpin my notion of empowerment further, but at the moment my idea of empowerment has to do with enabling people to step into the social and political arenas and take part in the play for power. The process of empowerment involves access to – what Bourdieu would call - different sorts of capitals (cultural, social and symbolic), education (a possible way of gaining access to different forms of capital as well as an critical awareness of the invisible rules of the power play – or as Boudieu would call it ‘symbolic violence’) and recognition of people’s every-day life experiences (as in Pierre Lévy’s idea of ‘collective intelligence’ or in a more Marxist-feminist tradition as represented by e.g. the German sociologist Frigga Haug). The SI-games researched seems to offer players the possibility of empowerment, through e.g. access to cultural, social and symbolic capital in the form of contact with, guidance and help from international experts on social innovation as well as being part of the heterogeneous network of players. The arena metaphor that I am using draws on Bourdieu’s concept of fields. Bourdieu describes society as a conglomerate of fields with different rules and actors. Within the field there is a battle for power, access to and recognition of different sorts of capitals. A similar struggle is taking place between the fields, creating a hierarchy between the fields. These battles leave some people at the periphery of a field with out the power or the resources to influence the battle taking place – and thereby influencing their own living conditions. Bourdieu’s analyses and theory is drawing a picture of social barriers hindering that a participatory democracy could ever materialise. But as I said earlier, I see the participatory democracy as an ideal to strive for and a way to come as closer to that ideal is to deliberately empower new, different and peripheral actors and create arenas where their voice, views and visions are represented in the social and political development.

In my perspective, the SI-games researched could be seen as a design arena or field. But I am curious about weather such a designed arena, where e.g. the rules are very clear and different from the social rules of the physical world, opens up for the possibility of creating an arena that empowers different actors or different constellations of actors than in the physical concrete world to participate in the process of social innovation.

RESEARCH METHODIn this paragraph I will account for my method. It is an initial step and should be read as such. I am very much aware that the thoughts presented here are very preliminary. In the next couple of months I will works intensively on setting up an detailed research design, as I will have to start my production of empirical data in the spring of 2012 when the second round of Urgent Evoke will be played.

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My research strategy consists of a multiple-case study. I have chosen this approach for two reasons. The first reason is that a case study allows me to work holistically, approaching my case from different angels producing quantitative and qualitative evidence (Feagin, Orum, & Sjoberg, 1991). As said earlier, SI-games are relatively new and very little has been written about them and I therefore have very little material to draw on and learn from. A multiple-case study can help me grasp the complexity and nuances of the SI-games, and the method can - in contrast to other research approaches (e.g. surveys, experiments, literature-study) - provide a first-hand understanding of a real-life phenomenon, in particular when it concerns a new phenomenon that has not yet a clear set of outcomes (Yin, 2009). The second reason for choosing a multiple-case study is that I in my research will be looking for similarities (e.g. how certain game rules create similar openings for empowerment) and differences (e.g. how different game rules generate different types of innovation processes) between the games. I therefore need a method that allows me to replicate my method on different SI-games and thereby create evidence that can be compared as well as contrasted (Yin, 2009). A multiple-case study does that.But every advantage comes with a disadvantage. According to Yin (Yin, 2009) the main disadvantage of a multiple-case study approach is that it creates a complex material and cost a lot of time from the initial design process to the analysis. I am sure he is right. But doing something for the first time means that you cannot imagine how difficult and complicated it is going to be. If you knew you probably wouldn’t start the enterprise. I am still a multiple-case study novice; intrigued by the methodological advantages and possibly, oblivious to the challenges awaiting me. My intention is to apply the following research instruments on three cases: systematic self-observation, qualitative interviews and Social Network Analysis.

Systematic self- observation means that I will systematically observe myself, as I will be playing the games. I will use this approach for two reasons. One – I believe that the Cartesian dualism has to be challenged when possible and that a more phenomenological approach to knowledge production must be attempted. And since our first knowledge of the world after being born is build up by sensing the world with our whole body (e.g. cold/warm, fare away/close by, big/small) I find it relevant to approach my field with a ‘whole me’ – body and mind – when possible. By playing the games my self and experience the games first hand (my fingers on the keyboard, the pain in my back from sitting to long, the amount of time that the game can keep my attention and so on) I believe that I will get a broader understanding of the games and be able to ask better questions during my research and more easily put the answers into a context. I would like to tell a short story that I think supports my argument. During my initial research I have come across a game called HUSH. Hush is a game telling the story about the fight between Hutu and Tutsi communities in Rwanda in 1994. In the game you play a mother who must calm her baby by singing a lullaby. You must type out the words of your lullaby calmly and evenly to keep your child from crying, maintaining your rhythm while you are bombarded by the increasingly disturbing sounds and images of the genocide just beyond your window. If you can’t keep the rhythm your baby will start to cry, harder and harder, you will be discovered and killed. If you can keep your child quiet, you can survive the violence and escape. First, I was approaching HUSH analytically, trying to describe its distinct way of telling a difficult story. Analytically, I could understand and explain how the developers were trying to reach me emotionally, but it wasn’t until I played the game that I really understood how profoundly they had succeeded in their mission. When I played the game, I started to sweat every time my virtual baby made a sound. I was distressed and my

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body was reacting. Having played the game my self, gave me another understanding of how strongly the game could affect players than I had ever been able to build up by e.g. interviewing other players of HUSH. Having said that, I don’t expect that my self-observations will deliver data for my analyses. I see it as a personal learning process that will strengthen my capacity to understand my cases and informants and as better and more reflected questions. Second – self-observation give me the possibility to make a meta-reflection on my own research. It will enable me to discuss how my own prejudice, strengths and weaknesses affect my research and conclusions.

The focal point of my research will lie on the qualitative interviews combined with social network analyses. I am interested in three phases of the life of the game – the pre-phase, the in-game phase and the post-phase.

Using the case of Urgent Evoke as an example. Urgent Evoke is developed by game-developer Jane McGonigal in co-operation with the World Bank. The game was first played in 2010. Twenty winners were then chosen. Their projects got seed money and the winners themselves received training and mentor-help from leading international experts. In the spring of 2012 the Urgent Evoke will be played again. In the two years in between the game has been further developed on basis of the experiences from and evaluation of the 2010 version of the game.

Pre-phase: In my research I would like to interview the game developers about their initial ideas, intentions and design and I would like to learn about the reflections on the first game and how that has influenced the changes made in the new version of Urgent Evoke. Understanding the ideas and intentions behind the game and the design of it (interface, game structure, rules etc.) will make it possible to analyse and discuss how this pre-phase/design process influences the potentials of the game to function as a tool for gamer-driven bottom up social innovation.

In-game: In this phase of the life of the game I will be playing the game my-self. During my game play I will get in contact with other players and I will interview 20 players with the purpose of describing their background, player motivations, expectations, experiences with the game. It is important that the players interviewed are as different as possible (geographical position, age, gender, educational, social and cultural background) because this will reflect the heterogeneous social network of the games and help me find out how different cultural backgrounds and habitus might influence the interaction between players and players interaction with the game. Next to these interviews I will make a social network analysis of the 2010 as well as the 2012 version of the game. I have downloaded the old game with content and I will do the same with the 2012-game. I will use the material to map the social networks of the twenty winners of both games, with the purpose of looking for patterns in their way of using the social networks of the game and building up their own network.

Post-game: I want to look at the aftermath of the game because I need to know what happens with the players and their ideas after the game. An important claim of the researched games is that they can create real-life social change. That requires a gate between the virtual and the physical world where e.g. innovations, capitals and skills of the games can migrate through. I am wondering if that

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gate exists, and under which circumstances it is open and to whom. To be able to analyse that and discuss the problems and potentials of such a gate, I need to know more about what happens in the time after the play. I have chosen to concentrate on the twenty winners of both games, because especially they were expected to pick the fruit of the game and evolve as new social innovators. I would therefore like to interview them, about the time after the game and how the experiences from the game have or have not affect their lives further.

DISSEMINATIONI the following I will shortly account for my dissemination plans and actions. Some of the plans have already been put into deeds.

The proposed research project has three target groups – the scientific community, Forening Trekantområdet and its six founding municipalities and last but not least, a mixed group of game developers, educators and decision makers from the profit and the non-profit socio-political sector.

My proposal is interdisciplinary and draws on political science and sociology as well as communication and learning theories. I choose to see that as a strength that allows me to learn from and draw on different scientific traditions and theoretical developments. But it also means that my PhD will not contribute to the development of one single discipline, but rather to a cross-disciplinary discussion of games as a powerful tool for social and political innovation. This is a young and emerging discussion, and I think that my research can give an insight into what it is that on-line games can offer as a tool for collective thinking and bottom-up social innovation, and if and how games can make room for new types of social innovators and new types of political and social involvement. To communicate to and discuss my ideas with the scientific community I will use well-known channels such as conferences and scientific magazines. I will produce posters, presentations and papers that will hopefully spark a constructive critic and a stimulating discussion. Nest to that I have established a research blog (http://gaming4good.wordpress.com/). Here I will talk about, show and hopefully discuss parts of my research as it progresses.

The proposed project will be made in co-operation with Forening Trekantområdet. This co-operation obliges me to communicate my ideas and results to practioners from the six involved municipalities from the beginning to the end of my research period. I believe this to be a very relevant challenge, because I am convinced that the results of the project have a practical value. The SI-games are developed with the purpose of generating positive social change and it is therefore important that the existence, relevance and potentials of these games are communicated to possible users in a way that they find relevant. The municipalities are the link between the citizens and the government and therefore an interesting partner when discussing the democratic potential of SI-games. A small group of critical friends consisting of employees from the municipalities is being formed. I will meet with them in February and introduce and discuss my work. I will continue to do so every six months for the next 3 years. The discussions will enable me to draw on their practical experience with citizen involvement, discover inherent resistances as well as test my ideas in an early stage. Next to the group of critical friends I will communicate my results to a large group of municipality employees through

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presentations and workshops that will give them a hand-on experience with SI-games. I have already made a first presentation for the employees of Forening Trekantområdet.

Next to the scientific world and the involved municipalities, I would like to communicate my findings to game developers, educators and decision makers from the profit and the non-profit socio-political sector. I believe that my PhD has an added value for people that are working to create new and better games, but also for people working with political communication and education. I think that the results of my Ph.D. could inspire political actors to start using games to create more inclusive political communication processes that empowers people to take part in shaping the world and their own social environment. Furthermore, I would like to reach educators, opening their eyes to the possibilities of teaching the coming generations in new and more playful ways that could facilitate the birth of more social innovators. To reach this group I will use my research blog but also the more traditional media such as papers and radio. I have already given my first interview to Budstikken, a local paper reaching all of Trekantområdet. The interview will be published in February.

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BUDGETIn the following I will make a budget for the previous and the coming half-year.

1. September 2011- 29. Februar 2012Expenses per. 24.1.2012Total Dkk.: 5.451,71

Hardware (ekstern harddisk) 1.064,00Software (downloading af websites) 182,04Conference (Public Innovation) 2.531,65Travels Kolding x 2 1.396,00Books 278,02

Expected expenses until 1.3.2012Total Dkk.: 2.396,00

Books 1.000,00Travels Kolding x 2 1.396,00

TOTAL DKK. 7.847,71

1. Marts 2012 – 31. August 2012 Games for Change Conference in New York

+ research interviews in Washington D.C (World Bank) Total Dkk.: 12.000,00

Plane ticket 4.000,00 Train ticket N.Y-DC 500,00 Hotel x 5 nights 4.000,00

Diets x 5 days1.000,00 Conference fee 2.500,00

Other Expenses Total Dkk.: 10.292,00

PhD Course 6.000,00 Travels Kolding x 4 2.792,00 Study visit University Utrecht,NL(Ticket) 1.500,00

TOTAL DKK. 22.292,00

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