Call for Papers - Vol. 5, No. 1

2026-03-26

Games Beyond Entertainment: Design, Pedagogy, Research and Social Impact

Guest Editors: João Alves de Sousa (HEI-Lab, Lusófona University), Lisa Bievenue (School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Aarón Garrido (Esc. Tec. Sup. de Ingeniería Informática, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos) & Baltasar Manjon (Department of Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence, Complutense University of Madrid)

Games have long exceeded the boundaries of entertainment. Across higher education, creative practice, research, community engagement, and industry collaboration, games are increasingly being mobilised as cultural forms, pedagogical tools, critical methods, and vehicles for social reflection and transformation. At the same time, the spaces in which games are taught, designed, studied, and produced are themselves changing, shaped by pressures within the global games industry, shifting educational priorities, emerging technologies, and growing calls for accessibility, inclusion, and meaningful public impact.

 

This special issue emerges from the 2026 Playful by Design Symposium, hosted by Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, Spain, under the theme Games Beyond Entertainment. As a local and global community of practice, Playful by Design brings together teachers, scholars, artists, designers, and third-space professionals working across disciplines and institutional contexts. The symposium’s round table format foregrounds dialogue, experimentation, and collaborative thinking, creating fertile ground for new research partnerships and shared publications. Building on those exchanges, this special issue of The International Journal of Games and Social Impact seeks to gather contributions that explore how games matter beyond leisure alone, and how they are being reimagined through transdisciplinary, socially engaged, and glocal approaches to design, pedagogy, research, and innovation.

 

Submissions may address (but are not limited to) the following topics:

  • Games beyond entertainment in education, research, culture, and public life;
  • Game pedagogy and curriculum design;
  • Games and experiential, collaborative, or transdisciplinary education;
  • Accessibility, inclusion, and equity;
  • Serious games, applied games, simulations, and immersive experiences;
  • Critical game studies and socially engaged game research;
  • Game-making as research practice;
  • Ethical questions in game development and teaching;
  • Cross-institutional and cross-sector partnerships;
  • Community-based and participatory game design;
  • Local and global perspectives on games and social impact;
  • The future of games in higher education and professional practice;
  • Games as responses to contemporary social, cultural, and political challenges.

 

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should adhere to the journal’s formatting and referencing guidelines. Both full research articles (6,000-8,000 words) and short papers (2,000-4,000 words) are welcome. All submissions will undergo a double-blind peer review process to ensure scholarly rigour and originality. As in previous IJGSI calls, submissions should be original, not previously published, and not under consideration elsewhere. Full papers must be submitted electronically through the journal platform, following the instructions provided in the Submissions section of the journal website.

 

Timeline

Abstracts for Round Table discussions and potential papers: 11 April 2026

Notification of selected abstracts / final programme: 8 May 2026

Symposium: 28–29 May 2026

Full Paper Submission Deadline: 31 July 2026

Notification of Acceptance: 30 November 2026

Publication Date: March 2027


The call for the symposium can be found here: https://playfulbydesign.illinois.edu/conference/symposium2026/

 

It is not necessary to submit to the symposium to submit to this call for papers.

 

When submitting the full paper, please use IJGSI's submission platform and indicate which call you are referring to.