Calling all serious gaming PhD students!

Calling all serious gaming PhD students!

Join the GaLA Alignment School and Young Academy

An interesting event is being hosted at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK, from June 20 until June 24, 2011. The event is a so-called Alignment School, meant to help you obtain and share the latest knowledge into serious gaming in the broadest sense of the term. The programme will include a varied mixture of keynotes, lectures, workshops, Serious Games demos, pitches, team challenges and game play activities. It will be relevant to computer scientists, social and behavioral scientists as well as arts and humanities scientists. A host of Europe’s finest serious gaming researchers from all these disciplines will be attending, as well as Europe’s biggest serious gaming developers and appliers (see the list of institutions at the bottom of this e-mail). There will also be several social and cultural events. The school will be based in the Postgraduate Centre at Heriot-Watt University: http://www.hw.ac.uk/student-life/campus-life/edinburgh/postgraduate-centre.htm. The main programme will start at 2 pm on Monday 20th and finish by 1 pm on Friday 24th.

The event is hosted by the Games and Learning Alliance (GaLA), an EU-funded Network of Excellence in serious gaming, and as such only open to people affiliated with institutions within GaLA.

Are you in GaLA? If you are affiliated with one of the institutions listed at the bottom of this e-mail, you are indeed!

Also part of the Alignment School is the kick-off of the GaLA Young Academy, whose website is now online: http://www.galaya.eu. The Young Academy is to be a community of young European researchers and professionals that can enhance collaborative development and exchange of knowledge in serious gaming.

You can join the Young Academy on http://www.galaya.eu, as well its first meeting at the Alignment School in Edinburgh!

To attend the Alignment School in Edinburgh, you have to register as soon as possible at http://www.galanoe.eu/index.php/private-area/events. Be sure to have your GaLA Partner Number ready (see the list of GaLA institutions and their numbers at the bottom of this e-mail), and select ‘Guest PhD’ as a status.

Costs

·         There will be a registration fee of approximately Euro 150 to cover the cost of lunches, social dinners and break time refreshments. Payment will be taken at registration either as cash (GBP) or credit card.

·         To lower costs for PhD students, the organising committee has arranged accommodation on the Heriot-Watt University campus. Single en-suite bedrooms available for 4 nights from 20 June at a rate of GBP 37.00 per room per night on a bed and breakfast basis. Accommodation can be booked by either telephoning the HWU Reservations Office on 0131 451 3669 or contacting us via reservations@hw.ac.uk. To receive the special rate you must quote ‘EU Project Conference-June’ when making contact. Full prepayment will be required at the time of booking.

·         Alternatively, the organising committee have used their Edinburgh Convention Bureau to negotiate rates for Alignment School attendants at a range of Edinburgh City Centre Hotels. You are advised to make your reservation as soon as possible if you wish to take advantage of this opportunity. Edinburgh Convention Bureau offers a free online accommodation booking service to delegates attending this meeting. To view and book the various accommodation options please click on this link: https://cabs.conventionedinburgh.com/ei/cm.esp?id=150276&pageid=_37L0OOIBM. Credit card details are required to make a booking and confirmation shall be sent to your e-mail address. Payment should be made directly with the accommodation provider at the time of your stay. To contact Edinburgh Convention Bureau, either e-mail: bookings@conventionedinburgh.com or telephone on +44 (0) 131 473 3874.

If you have any questions about the GaLA Young Academy, please contact Harald Warmelink, TU Delft, h.j.g.warmelink@tudelft.nl, tel. +31 1527 81349.

If you have any questions about the GaLA Alignment School, please contact Alasdair Thin, Heriot-Watt University, a.g.thin@hw.ac.uk.

Institutions within GaLA:

1 UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI GENOVA

2 UNIVERSITE PAUL SABATIER TOULOUSE III

3 MINISTERUL APARARII NATIONALE

4 Serious Games Interactive

5 UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND

6 ATOS ORIGIN SOCIEDAD ANONIMA ESPANOLA

7 UNIVERSITAET GRAZ

8 UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID

9 COVENTRY UNIVERSITY

10 PlayGen Ltd

11 HERIOT-WATT UNIVERSITY

12 INESC ID - INSTITUTO DE ENGENHARIA DE SISTEMAS E COMPUTADORES, INVESTIGACAO E DESENVOLVIMENTO EM LISBOA

13 TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT DELFT

14 ORT FRANCE

15 CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE

16 UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT

17 Tampereen teknillinen yliopisto - TTY-SAATIO

18 THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM

19 BIBA - BREMER INSTITUT FUER PRODUKTION UND LOGISTIK GMBH

20 NORGES TEKNISK-NATURVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET NTNU

21 OPEN UNIVERSITEIT NEDERLAND

22 AALBORG UNIVERSITET

23 AALTO-KORKEAKOULUSAATIO

24 CYNTELIX CORPORATION LIMITED

25 POLITECNICO DI MILANO

26 Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich

27 FUNDACION ESADE

28 TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET GRAZ

29 Centre Europeen d'Education Permanente

30 NATO Undersea Research Centre

31 RHEINISCH-WESTFAELISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE AACHEN