We got some good news in the middle of summer: our consortium of European game studies centres has been granted funds to organise an international Summer School of game studies in 2014. There is more information in the annoucement below:
Summer School: Identity and Interdisciplinarity in Games and Play Research
The first interdisciplinary European summer school in game and play research will take place 16-31 August 2014 at Utrecht University in The Netherlands. It is aimed at talented PhD and MA/MSc students who are interested in the study of games and play. It offers students an innovative interdisciplinary platform for learning about games and play that doesn’t exist anywhere else in Europe or beyond.
This ERASMUS IP Summer School is hosted by Utrecht University, but organized by different European universities that are considered as leaders in the field. It will consist of a two-week intensive programme during which students are encouraged to develop their research ideas further. It will provide a unique opportunity to learn about cutting-edge theories and methodologies from leading scholars in the field. Students will have the rare opportunity to broaden their horizon internationally, and to gain knowledge about games and play from an interdisciplinary perspective.
The target group consists of excellent PhD and MA/MSc students who are starting or working on thesis projects in games and play from a background in the humanities, design research, social sciences, computer sciences or other related domains. Around 60 students from 17 different participating European institutions of higher education will be selected and are offered an exceptional chance to look beyond the borders of their home institutions in order to gain knowledge about the full scope of European scholarship on games and play. The participating students, share the ability to broaden their scope of knowledge and go beyond the boundaries of their fields.
During this summer school we will stimulate students to develop an interdisciplinary understanding of games and play as cultural phenomena, thus teaching them the means to develop an informed methodological and theoretical framework for their research. Activities such as reading, writing, discussing, lecturing, presenting, excursions, and interdisciplinary workshops will serve this purpose. The main expected outputs will consists of papers (proceedings), poster presentations, public online discussion (web forum, social media) and designed games and/or playful objects as output of practice-based research during workshops.
Travel and sustenance costs for selected students from participating universities will be covered by the ERASMUS IP.
More information
More information about the Summer School, and how to apply for participation will follow later on http://www.gapsummerschool2014.nl. On this website you can find a list of participating universities.
Organizational team
Joost Raessens – Utrecht University, The Netherlands
René Glas – Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Sybille Lammes – University of Warwick, United Kingdom
Frans Mäyrä – University of Tampere, Finland
Mathias Fuchs – Leuphana University, Germany
Ben Schouten – Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
frans goes blog 
Too bad: twoo weeks are definitely too much for people with family 😦 And I#d love to attend this Summer Schoolk so badly… Is there no possibility for some kind of three-day “short-term-courses”?
Arno – thanks for the comment (and sorry for delayed response) – I have relayed your concern about the lenght of the summer school to the steering group. This format is now based on the European, two week model of Intensive Programmes, but we will definitely consider also the shorter options in the future.
I’d love to visit that summer school… unfortunately I am not pursuing my phd at one of these 17 universities… Any chance for outsiders?
I would love to join that summer school. Unfortunately, I am not pursuing my PhD at one of these 17 participating universities… Any chance for outsiders to join?
Hi Michael – I am not sure how this goes exactly, so I recommend that you are in direct contact with the University of Utrecht main organisers, they should be able to answer any such questions. Thanks for the interest!