Serious Game Development and Effectiveness for the Security Domain

CENTRIC (Centre of Excellence in Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence and Organised Crime Research) is a multidisciplinary, security focused research centre with the objective to develop solutions to today’s most pressing security challenges. By collaborating with academic, law enforcement, government and industry partners we provide security innovations while giving due consideration to citizen perspectives, the interests and engagement of end-users as well as key societal and relevant ethical issues. CENTRIC offers the following PhD opportunity linked to existing international projects:

Serious game development and effectiveness for the security domain
This PhD will investigate the most appropriate design methods and development strategies in the creation of effective serious games within the security domain.

For the studentships, the PhD students will be registered for a PhD, alongside which they will contribute to up to 180 hours of support for research or teaching related activity per academic year – in projects in their respective specialist area within CENTRIC. This activity forms part of the scholarship award and there is no additional payment for it. Opportunities for development will include research based in the existing CENTRIC research portfolio projects as well as upcoming research work as part of international, collaborative networks of academic, law enforcement, non-governmental organisations and industry. Some travel may be expected for both the PhD. research and any associated project work.

Eligibility
Applicants should hold a 1st or 2.1 honours degree in a relevant discipline to the PhD area they apply to. Applicants are expected to have a strong background within games development with good programming and/or games design skills. It would be desirable for candidates to have existing experience with building serious games and designing/conducting validation studies. Currently enrolled students are not eligible to apply.

How to apply
To apply for the PhD studentship, please submit: a 2-page draft research proposal around your chosen area of interest, the names of two academic references, copies of qualifications, certificates and/or results transcripts, and proof of English language ability, where English is not your first language, copies of your passport and any relevant visas, for international applicants.

Please visit the University’s webpage https://www.shu.ac.uk/study-here/how-to-apply/postgraduate/application-form for the application form. Please submit the completed form, and the above documents to [Email Address Removed] and cc in Professor Petra Saskia Bayerl ([Email Address Removed]).

Start date for the studentship: 01 February 2021

Interviews are scheduled for: TBC

For information on how to apply please visit https://www.shu.ac.uk/research/degrees

Your application should be emailed to [Email Address Removed] and [Email Address Removed] by the closing date of 29 October 2020