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project info
Start date: 1 August 2018
End date: 30 April 2021
funding
Fund: European Social Fund (ESF)
Total budget: 2 937 982,55 €
EU contribution: 1 468 991,27 €
programme
Programming period: 2014-2021
Managing authority: Rådet för Europeiska socialfonden (Svenska ESF-rådet)

Project Studio Ludum

Project Studio Ludum is a pilot study whose target group are young women and men (15-24 years) who are interested in gaming and game culture, and who neither work nor study. The purpose is to utilize their commitment to gaming, and motivate them to complete their studies and/or in other ways approach the labor market. The project idea takes place in the work made in the ESF-funded prestudy: Games as Establishment Tools (ESF Reference Number: 2016/00554), which was conducted at the Computer Game Development Programs at the University of Skövde. The project collaborators are University of Skövde, Skaraborgs kommunalförbund and five municipalities in Skaraborg (Gullspång, Götene, Hjo, Skövde and Töreboda). The collaborators want to try new ways of working by testing, evaluating and further developing the methodology Studio Ludum together with the project participants. In the methodology, both the total and the individual activities uses gamification. By using gamification means to use mechanisms that are common in games, such as rule systems, visual feedback, motivation and reward mechanisms, to enhance interaction and to engage participants. Studio Ludum will offer participants a project environment consisting of both digital and physical spaces, which are closely linked to each other. In the digital scene, the participants will create their alter ego, a game character, which will follow the participant during the project. If the participants play a part in activities in the physical world, their digital characters will be rewarded. When the participants come to Studio Ludum, they get help creating a Personal Inventory. A concept inspired by the world of games that involves getting a visual overview of your own skills, a sort of mapping of a person's strengths and abilities. Within Studio Ludum, the participants' Personal Inventory will help to specify what sub-goals and goals they have and what kinds of challenges they need to master to achieve these goals. When the participants leave the project, the ambition is that they are sufficiently strengthened as individuals, knowing what they have for strengths and skills, and what they have in order to aim for, to study or find a place in the labor market. With Studio Ludum there is an effort to build a project culture where the game interest is in focus and where there is an inclusive climate. In order to claim that all participants have equal opportunities to participate, the project need to take into account different factors, for example, that a relatively large proportion of the target group is diagnosed with some type of neuropsychiatric function variation. In addition, the project needs to take into account various prejudices, for example, that games are usually associated with something that boys and men have as an interest and that the young women's voices are often marginalized. Therefore, it is important that Studio Ludum works deliberately with gender, diversity and accessibility aspects in its value base, so that the physical and digital site and activities are not designed with only one part of the target audience as the norm.

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