Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

Bridging the Games Research-Practice Gap through Theory Translation

Project description

Translating theory into practice for game designers

Games research rarely meets the needs of design practice. The EU-funded THEORYCRAFT project aims to bridge the gap between research and design practice. It will study the way game design practitioners use theory to demonstrate how theory needs to be transformed to bridge research and design practice. In addition, it will generate theories of poorly understood games phenomena based on theories in psychology, and deliver translational resources that express theories in ways that are helpful and practical for game design. Lastly, the project will assess how useful these theories are in closing the gap between research and design practice.

Objective

How can theory inform design practice? This question is among the grand challenges in both Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and games research. Despite numerous efforts to bridge the research-practice gap, the two poles seem irreconcilable. Instead of a robust and generalizable knowledge base to tackle foundational problems around technology use, cumulative knowledge building is impeded by weak empirical studies and rampant theoretical misconceptions. Instead of providing practitioners with useful theory-based insights, research results often remain too abstract and not sufficiently actionable to be adopted into design practice.

THEORYCRAFT tackles this conundrum by means of theory translation, demonstrating how theory needs to be transformed and specified to bridge research and design practice. Building on the PI's excellent track record in theory-building games research, we approach theory translation from four angles: 1) We investigate how game design practitioners make use of theory to identify avenues for productive theory translation. 2) We translate theoretical propositions from psychology to build explanatory theories of ill-understood games phenomena. 3) We develop translational resources that convey theoretical propositions in a manner that is useful and actionable for game design. 4) We evaluate the translated theories in terms of their utility to bridge research and design practice. Individually, each angle will result in important advances in HCI and games research. Collectively, THEORYCRAFT will produce a breakthrough in transparent and systematic theory translation, which will radically transform how knowledge is built, represented and disseminated – steering HCI and games research towards greater scientific integrity, practical relevance, and impact.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2021-STG

See all projects funded under this call

Host institution

IT-UNIVERSITETET I KOBENHAVN
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 471 056,00
Address
RUED LANGGAARDSVEJ 7
2300 Kobenhavn
Denmark

See on map

Region
Danmark Hovedstaden Byen København
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 471 056,00

Beneficiaries (1)

My booklet 0 0