Mission

The mission of The Centre for Contemporary Play is to:

• create a world-class centre of excellence which works with global industry partners to create new thinking through partnerships, resulting in a pioneering, intellectual and economic legacy
• forward the understanding and appreciation of computer and videogames by conducting and promoting dynamic, innovative and interdisciplinary research
• develop new strategies for the embedding of informal learning into everyday.

The core activities of The Centre for Contemporary Play fall into the three categories below:

Education and training
A priority for the centre is to provide an authority on curriculum design in collaboration with Skillset, Connexions, Creative Partnerships and leading industry partners. The centre will offer, for instance, subject-specific knowledge of games accreditation, access to industry consultants and advisors for development and validation.

Research
The centre will promote academic and practitioner-based research across Schools in the University and provide resources to projects for funding exploratory research before bids are submitted to external funding bodies.  The School currently involved in the CCP are:

• School of Arts and Humanities
• School of Education
• School of Science and Technology
• School of Social Sciences

Development and maintenance of a rich and productive research culture around computer and videogames at NTU will be facilitated by the centre. Internal communications will present news, works in progress, as well as documenting opportunities and calls for collaboration and participation throughout the University, while networking sessions and a programme of research seminars will help to promote cross-fertilisation, collaborative research and a culture of inclusiveness.

The centre will facilitate the publication of books, scholarly articles and other academic output.

Knowledge transfer
The centre will maintain and update a continually-updated repository as a key resource for games studies academics, practitioners, and journalists, this will provide a comprehensive overview of current activity, publications, conferences as well as funding and research opportunities.

Drawing upon existing expertise in games studies and research, the centre will engage staff in consultancy both on an individual and group basis. Similarly it will work closely with Business in the Community (BIC) and across NTU to identify potential knowledge transfer partnership opportunities.