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Schedule (programme overview) for the BiGGi Con 2026 Conference Schedule Jump to Day 1 - Tue 15 Sep Day 2 - Wed 16 Sep Day 3 - Thu 17 Sep Day 1 - Tue 15 Sep 13:00 Tue 15 Sep Conference Opens for Day 1 Registered guests and participants sign in at the conference reception for the day. Foyer . 13:20 Tue 15 Sep Informal Welcome BiGGi Con Chairs Jeremy Gow & Laurissa Tokarchuk Foyer and Peston LT 13:30 Tue 15 Sep Alumni Talk 1 Nathan Hughes The Quality of Safety is... Games? An Alumn's Journey from Games Research to Safety Science Peston LT click box for more info 14:00 Tue 15 Sep Alumni Talk 2 Joseph Walton-Rivers Peston LT click box for more info 14:30 Tue 15 Sep TRACK 1: Panel Working with AI Peston LT . 14:30 Tue 15 Sep TRACK 2: Workshop Gamifying Citizen Science GC101 click box for more info 15:30 Tue 15 Sep Poster & Coffee . Foyer . 16:00 Tue 15 Sep Keynote #1 Jackie Mulligan (Game Republic) > Multiplayer, Multilevel, Multiverse: the Future of Higher Education and Game Research – an Industry Perspective Peston LT click box for more info 16:30 Tue 15 Sep Workshop Building an Alumni Network: Have Your Say in Its Legacy Peston LT click box for more info 17:30 Tue 15 Sep Close - Day 1 . . . Throughout BiGGi Con, room GC202 is available as The Quiet Room. Day 2 - Wed 16 Sep 09:00 Wed 16 Sep Conference Opens for Day 2 Registered guests and participants sign in at the conference reception for the day. Foyer . 09:30 Wed 16 Sep Welcome iGGi Director Peter Cowling & iGGi Chair Paul Cairns Peston LT . 09:45 Wed 16 Sep Keynote #2 Constance Steinkuehler & Kurt Squire (University of California) > Hero, Not Case File: Community-Authored Game Design at Homeboy Game Studio Peston LT click box for more info 10:45 Wed 16 Sep Coffee & Alumni Mixer . Foyer . 11:20 Wed 16 Sep iGGi Talk 1+2 GAME DESIGN Chaired by Nicole Levermore Alex Flint > Birds of Play: How Gamification Took Flight in Birdwatching Doruk Balcı > Playerly and Designerly Games: Structural Interpretation and Play Peston LT click box for more info 12:00 Wed 16 Sep Alumni Talk 3 Cristina Dobre What’s Happening with the VR Games: The Impact of Social Nonverbal Cues and Embodiment on VR Entertainment Peston LT click box for more info 12:30 Wed 16 Sep Lunch . Foyer . 13:30 Wed 16 Sep Alumni Talk 4 Nick Ballou Open Play: Findings and Lessons from 2 Million Hours of Public Video Games Data Peston LT click box for more info 14:00 Wed 16 Sep iGGi Talks 3-5 PLAYERS Chaired by Tamsin Isaac Nicole Levermore > What We Can Learn About the Brain Through Tetris Dominik Jeurissen > What Should I Do? An Experimental Onboarding Advisor for "Total War: Pharaoh" Lauren Winter > The Jingle of Contrasting Constructs: Comparing Measures of Immersion and Challenge from the PXI and IEQ-SF Peston LT click box for more info 15:00 Wed 16 Sep Buzz Talks Each iGGi PG Researcher introduces themselves and their research via a one-minute-single-slide "Buzz Talk" Peston LT . 15:30 Wed 16 Sep Poster & Coffee . Foyer . 16:15 Wed 16 Sep Alumni Talk 5 Jozef Kulik A Bird's Eye View: How Remote User Research Affects Hundreds of Games Peston LT click box for more info 16:45 Wed 16 Sep TRACK 1: Panel Responsible Game Design Peston LT . 16:45 Wed 16 Sep TRACK 2: Panel Careers in the Games Industry GC201 . 16:45 Wed 16 Sep TRACK 3: Workshop Research Ideas Workshop Organised and chaired by Laura Helsby GC101 click box for more info 17:45 Wed 16 Sep Close - Day 2 . . . 18:00 Wed 16 Sep Light Buffet, Social + Games Join us to chat, and for (optional) Games Night and/or a fun "Alumni Speed Networking" session. Foyer & 1st Floor . Day 3 - Thu 17 Sep 09:00 Thu 17 Sep Conference Opens for Day 3 Registered guests and participants sign in at the conference reception for the day. Foyer . 09:30 Thu 17 Sep Alumni Talk 6 Carlos González Díaz Eye-tracking in Social VR and What to Take Away for Game Technology Peston LT click box for more info 10:00 Thu 17 Sep iGGi Talks 6+7 LIVE-SERVICE GAMES Chaired by tba Lauren Winter > Why Pugging in World of Warcraft is Awful (and what you can learn from it) Tamsin Isaac > Playing Against the Clock: A Cross-Platform Taxonomy of Limited-Time Events Peston LT click box for more info 10:40 Thu 17 Sep Coffee (& IAB Meeting start) The iGGi IAB meeting runs from 10:40 until 12:30 in parallel with the Coffee Break and subsequent Workshops. Note this is for IAB Members and iGGi Staff/Rep only who will have received room details and other relevant information. Foyer (IAB Members s. email) . 11:10 Thu 17 Sep TRACK 1: Workshop Agentic AI for Games Organised and chaired by Simon Lucas GC201 click box for more info 11:10 Thu 17 Sep TRACK 2: Workshop Collaborative Writing with Typst and Jujutsu Organised and chaired by Daniel Gomme GC204 click box for more info 11:10 Thu 17 Sep TRACK 3: Workshop Designing Seriously Casual Games Organised and chaired by Luiza Gossian GC114 click box for more info 11:10 Thu 17 Sep TRACK 4: Workshop DevOps for Games Researchers Organised and chaired by Nathan John GC103 click box for more info 12:30 Thu 17 Sep Lunch . Foyer . 13:30 Thu 17 Sep iGGi Talks 8+9 GAME AI Chaired by tba Dien Nguyen > JSON-Bag: Game-agnostic Automatic Feature Extraction Toby Best > ‘Journeys in the Dark’: Exploring Procedural Content Generation for Descent Peston LT click box for more info 14:10 Thu 17 Sep Keynote #3 Thomas Keane & Ben Ackland > How to “Bully” AI into Meaningful Gameplay Peston LT click box for more info 15:10 Thu 17 Sep Coffee & Alumni Mixer . Foyer . 15:45 Thu 17 Sep Alumni Talk 7 James Goodman What Has Game AI Ever Done for the Romans? Peston LT click box for more info 16:15 Thu 17 Sep Closing Remarks . Peston LT . 16:45 Thu 17 Sep iGGi The Musical . Peston LT click box for more info Please note that all attendees of the iGGi Conference will need to adhere to our Code of Conduct.

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games & Game Intelligence (iGGi) is the world's largest PhD programme for games research. The iGGi Con has established itself as an annual showcase of our PGRs' work; a networking platform that connects games industry & academia. The "BiGGi Con 2026" might be the last & biggest of its kind: we look back on 12 years of iGGi, its achievements, and most of all its people & their journeys. Register to come & celebrate with us! Places are limited. 2026 CONFERENCE YOUR FUTURE IN GAMES RESEARCH iGGi Con Programme Programme Brochure PDF Schedule Venue Keynotes PGR Talks Industry INFO for iGGi Alumni Alumni Talks About iGGi See You Soon! 15 -17 September '26 The conference provides a space for industry and academia to come together to discuss the latest and greatest in games research. About The iGGi Conference What is the iGGi conference? Where is the iGGi Conference? What's on at the iGGi Conference? Games Research The iGGi Conference has been operating annually for over 10 years. It's become an established showcase of our iGGi PhD researchers , allowing a birds-eye view into their work, and a chance to bring academic research, innovation and the games industry together. This year's iGGi Con is special since it's likely to be the last of its kind; a celebration of all things iGGi, past and present: BiGGi Con 2026 . Queen Mary University of London After two years at York, the iGGi Conference will for its final run return again to London, namely to the Graduate Center of Queen Mary University of London (Mile End Campus). Also see: Venue Opportunities Talks, workshops, and panels from researchers, academics, and industry members disseminating their expertise. The conference provides a space for industry and academia to come together to discuss the latest and greatest in games research. BiGGi Con 2026 will also be a celebration of all things iGGi and, as such, feature a range of Alumni Talks . BiGGi Con 2026 Programme Brochure Venue anchor home pg Why is iGGi Con BIGGER and BETTER this year? The iGGi Conference 2026 (aka "BiGGi Con 2026") will probably be the last of its kind for the foreseeable future. It will mark the high-poin of iGGi's life span, and it will be a celebration of all things iGGi. This includes in particular our body of iGGi Alumni! As we are looking upon 12 years of iGGi, its achievements, past and present, and all its individual journeys. We're likely to hear the odd anecdote or two, and most of all, we look forward to seeing all the people who were involved over the years, all gathered in one spot! We'd like to invite all of those who were ever involved in iGGi and/or those who wish to celebrate with us to come along to this grand spectacle! If this is you, do register at your earliest convenience via the link on top of this page. Keynotes Keynote Speakers Thomas Keane Thomas Keane & Ben Ackland >> How to “Bully” AI into Meaningful Gameplay Ben Ackland Kurt Squire Constance Steinkuehler >> Hero, Not Case File: Community-Authored Game Design at Homeboy Game Studio Constance Steinkuehler & Kurt Squire Jackie Mulligan Jackie Mulligan >> Multiplayer, Multilevel, Multiverse: the Future of HE and Game Research – an Industry Perspective Follow BiGGi Con 2026 on Bluesky Get live updates! Alumni Speakers James Goodman James Goodman >> What Has Game AI Ever Done for the Romans? Jozef Kulik >> A Birds Eye View: How Remote User Research Affect Hundreds of Games Jozef Kulik Cristina Dobre Cristina Dobre >> What’s Happening with the VR Games: The Impact of Social Nonverbal Cues and Embodiment on VR Entertainment Carlos González Díaz >> Eye-tracking in Social VR and What to Take Away for Game Technology Carlos González Díaz Nick Ballou Nick Ballou >> Open Play: Findings and Lessons from 2 Million Hours of Public Video Games Data Nathan Hughes >> The Quality of Safety is... Games? An Alumn's Journey from Games Research to Safety Science Nathan Hughes Joseph Walton-Rivers Joseph Walton-Rivers >> AI for Board Games Follow BiGGi Con 2026 via iGGi LinkedIn Get the essential updates! BiGGi CON 2026 What's on? iGGi Con 2026 Schedule - Overview iGGi Alumni Talks iGGi PGR Talks BiGGi Con 2026 Keynotes iGGi Workshops iGGi Panels BiGGi Con 2026 Programme Brochure PDF What's On Organisers: General Chairs: Laurissa Tokarchuk, Jeremy Gow Programme Chairs: Filip Sroka, Toby Best, Ruizhe "Jay" Yu Xia Outreach & Marketing Chair: Prakriti Nayak Poster & Workshop Chair: Dien Nguyen Local Chair: Karl Clarke Tech/Media Chairs: Karl Clarke, Prakriti Nayak Alumni Chair: Nicole Levermore General Management: Susanne Binder, David Hull Admin Support: Shopna Begum, Helen Tilbrook, Oliver Roughton Website/Industry Liaison: Susanne Binder Contact: iggi-admin@york.ac.uk

Details regarding workshops running as part of the iGGi conference 2026, BiGGi Con 2026. Workshops Each Workshop runs during a multi-track sessions in parallel with other Workshops or Panels. To attend any of the Workshops, please put your name down on the (physical) sign-up sheets at the Reception Desk. iGGi Workshops - Tuesday Tue 15 Sep 14:30-15:30 Lead: Philip Smith TRACK 2 >> Gamifying Citizen Science Abstract: This workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to hone their game design skills in a rarely invoked context, as well as contribute to citizen science gamification research. Citizen science projects tend to lack meaningful long term engagement from their participants. While gamification has helped, it still faces similar pitfalls to non-gamified counterparts. A generalized design framework that can guide game designers towards practicing engaging citizen science game design could be a solution. I am conducting a design workshop that aims to identify the benefits and drawbacks of a proposed game design framework. Participants will work together in teams to create their own conceptual design of a citizen science game based on a given prompt and utilizing the design framework. Through working with the framework, participants will practice learn new techniques to bring gamified fun into the most unlikely of circumstances. Workshop Philip Smith Workshop Nicole Levermore Tue 15 Sep 16:30-17:30 iGGi Workshops - Tuesday Lead: Nicole Levermore SINGLE TRACK >> Building an Alumni Network: Have Your Say in Its Legacy Abstract: As the iGGi PhD programme has entered its mature stage, sustaining its diverse, interdisciplinary community becomes both a key priority and a unique opportunity. This workshop brings together participants of this year’s iGGi Conference, including current iGGi Researchers and Alumni to celebrate, (re-)connect, share pathways past and present, and collaboratively brainstorm about the long-term future of the iGGi Alumni Network. The first part of the session starts with a very short, relaxed and not-too-serious networking exercise during which you get the opportunity to engage in conversation with three or four other conference attendees. The second part shifts into an interactive co-design discussion focused on sustainability: How do we keep the iGGi Network running and active, independent of funding? We want to hear your ideas! Such as, for example, ideas for best communication channels and platforms (e.g., Discord, LinkedIn, community-driven Slack) to establish light-touch, community-led governance beyond iGGi’s funding end. While we are looking at input mainly from the iGGi Alumni and iGGi Researcher participants, since they are arguably crucial for the success of the project, we also highly value the opinions and ideas from all the other voices. We welcome everyone who attends BiGGi Con on this day to join this workshop, and in as active a way as possible: You will contribute to building the foundation for iGGi’s enduring legacy! iGGi Workshops - Wednesday Wed 16 Sep 16:45-17:45 Workshop Laura Helsby Lead: Laura Helsby TRACK 3 >> Research Ideas Workshop Abstract: This workshop will be run as a 'research ideas generation' event. Similar to modules, people will be placed into small groups and given a series of short tasks/problems to tackle. People will be encouraged to pair up with those who use different methods and have different approaches to foster creativity. No previous research experience is necessary. [Note from the BiGGi Con Organisers: this workshop may potentially be the starting point for some future research collaboration. More detailed information about this opportunity will be provided during this workshop and during Poster sessions.] iGGi Workshops - Thursday Thu 17 Sep 11:10-12:30 Lead: Simon Lucas TRACK 1 >> Agentic AI for Games Abstract: Language Models (LLMs) are rapidly evolving from standalone chat systems into agentic AI systems that can reason, plan, use tools, execute code, and iteratively improve their outputs. These capabilities are opening new possibilities for game research and development, from the creation of game-playing agents to procedural content generation (PCG) and automated game design. This 80-minute hands-on workshop provides an accessible introduction to agentic AI in the context of games. We begin with a concise overview of the core concepts behind agentic systems, including tool use, iterative refinement, code generation, and evaluation loops. We then demonstrate how these techniques can be applied to game-related tasks with examples in Game AI agent development and PCG. The session includes practical experimentation. Participants will work with a set of prepared examples and workflows (available in advance), allowing them to run live experiments and explore how modern LLM-based agents can generate, test, and refine game artefacts. Setup instructions will be provided before the conference to ensure that attendees can participate fully during the workshop. The session concludes with a discussion of lessons learned, current limitations, and emerging opportunities for agentic AI in games research. Participants will be encouraged to share experiences, identify promising application areas, and discuss future directions for combining LLMs with simulation, search, evaluation, and game design tools. Requirements: those wishing to execute examples should bring a laptop with Python 3.12 or later installed. Workshop Simon Lucas Thu 17 Sep 11:10-12:30 Lead: Daniel Gomme TRACK 2 >> Collaborative Writing with Typst & Jujutsu Abstract: We'll create a collaborative zine using Typst for typesetting, and jujutsu for version control. Pick a topic that electrifies your brain, and find out there are nicer tools than LaTeX and git. Workshop Daniel Gomme Thu 17 Sep 11:10-12:30 Lead: Luiza Gossian TRACK 3 >> Designing Seriously Casual Games Abstract: Design frameworks for serious games tend to focus exclusively on their serious, applied, or transformative aspects, while those for entertainment games tend to focus on fun, engagement, and immersion. Those that attempt to bridge the divide do so by taking elements of both without presenting principles that are specific to seriously casual games, that is serious games with a ludic focus. Through the development of Detachment Undone, an abstract arcade game based on the ten stages of genocide, several potential principles have emerged. These principles are specific enough to apply to ludic-focused serious games about difficult themes yet general enough to be used for the development of games beyond Detachment Undone. The workshop will invite game designers to engage in co-creation activities to help develop and solidify these principles into a format that can be useful and effective for game designers in the development of their own seriously casual game projects. Workshop Luiza Gossian Thu 17 Sep 11:10-12:30 Lead: Nathan John TRACK 4 >> DevOps for Games Researchers Abstract: DevOps is, admittedly, a bit of a dirty word. It sounds like the sort of thing that involves several dashboards, three cloud accounts, a YAML file you copied from Stack Overflow, and a quiet sense that everything is about to become more complicated than it was before. This workshop is not that. Instead, we’ll look at the useful bits of DevOps for game researchers: the bits that stop your Unity build only working on your laptop, help you share playable experiments with participants, and make sure your precious gameplay data actually arrives somewhere sensible. We’ll talk about hosting WebGL builds with tools like GitHub Pages, S3, or similar static site hosts, collecting remote experiment data with lightweight databases or serverless endpoints, and keeping enough version information that future-you can work out which build produced which results. The focus is practical, researcher-friendly, and only mildly cloud-flavoured. By the end, you should have a clearer idea of how to take a game experiment from “it works on my machine” to “people can play it remotely, the data is captured, and I might even be able to reproduce this later.” Workshop Nathan John Organisers: General Chairs: Laurissa Tokarchuk, Jeremy Gow Programme Chair: Filip Sroka, Toby Best, Ruizhe "Jay" Yu Xia Outreach & Marketing Chair: Prakriti Nayak Poster & Workshop Chair: Dien Nguyen Local Chair: Karl Clarke Tech/Media Chairs: Karl Clarke, Prakriti Nayak Alumni Chair: Nicole Levermore General Management: Susanne Binder, David Hull Admin Support: Shopna Begum, Helen Tilbrook, Oliver Roughton Website/Industry Liaison: Susanne Binder

BiGGi Con 2026 venue, Queen Mary University of London The BiGGi Con 2026 Venue The 2026 iGGi Conference takes place at Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Campus, Graduate Center, E1 4NS (NOT at Empire House, Whitechapel where the iGGi offices are) The BiGGi Con 2026 venue address is The Graduate Centre Mile End campus Queen Mary University of London Mile End Rd London E1 4NS Mile End campus map PDF Accesibility: Graduate Centre access guide Arriving by Tube Arriving by Tube, you have a choice between two Tube stations: Stepney Green or Mile End. Stepney Green Tube station is on the District Line (green on the Tube map) and the Hammersmith and City Line (pink on the Tube map). Turn left out of the station and walk along Mile End Road for approximately 5 minutes, then turn left into Bancroft Road. On Bancroft Road, look out for the gated entrance on your right. Walking through the gate, the Graduate Centre will be the first building to your right. (It has a glass front on ground floor level and its cafeteria/seating area is visible from the outside). Mile End Tube station is on the Central line. Turn left out of the station, cross over the junction, walk under the bridge and along Mile End Road for approximately 7 minutes, past East Gate and past the main building (Queen’s Building) until you see Bancroft Road to your right. Turn right into Bancroft Road. On Bancroft Road, look out for the gated entrance on your right. Walking through the gate, the Graduate Centre will be the first building to your right. (It has a glass front on ground floor level and its cafeteria/seating area is visible from the outside). Please use the Transport for London Journey Planner to help you plan your journey: https://tfl.gov.uk/plan-a-journey/ Arriving by Bus The Mile End campus is based on Mile End Road, on the 25 and 205 bus routes, with a stop right outside the campus. Cycling/Walking If you are travelling by bike or walking, please use the postcode above and the campus map to help you navigate to the venue. Bike racks for locking your bike can be found in various places on campus. Arriving by car Parking space at and around the university is extremely limited, and on-site parking is designated for QMUL staff and special permit holders only. We therefore strongly recommend you use the alternative transport methods (as listed above) to get to the venue. If you do need to drive to campus, QMUL open day published a list of offsite parking options within easy reach of Mile End, including park and ride options. If you are a blue badge holder and require parking on site, please email mile-end-security@qmul.ac.uk .

Details regarding talks by our PhD Researchers for the iGGi conference 2026, BiGGi Con 2026. iGGi PGR Talks iGGi Talks: Game Design Wed 16 Sep 11:20-12:00 Session chair: tba Alex Flint Alex Flint >> Birds of Play: How Gamification Took Flight in Birdwatching Abstract: Birdwatching was never designed as a game, yet many birdwatchers engage with it through game-like structures. Birders maintain life lists, compete to spot rare species, complete app-based challenges, and receive notifications that influence where and when they birdwatch. At the same time, digital games allow players to simulate birdwatching entirely. These developments raise a key question: What happens when a nature-based hobby becomes increasingly shaped by game design? To address this question, the talk introduces a framework for analysing birdwatching as a continuum of game-like structures rather than a simple distinction between 'gamified' and 'non-gamified' activities. The framework maps practices across two dimensions: whether game-like structures are implicit or explicit, and whether they emerge through community practices or are intentionally designed into systems. It serves both as a taxonomy for understanding birdwatching activities and as a critical lens for examining their effects. The talk argues that these game-like structures are increasingly acting as core systems rather than simply add-on engagement tools, meaning that ecological knowledge is shaped both by the natural world and by how users’ attention is directed. Bio: link to iGGi profile Talk 1 Doruk Balci Talk Doruk Balcı >> Playerly and Designerly Games: Structural Interpretation and Play Abstract: As games continue to develop as a cultural medium, the question of how they are interpreted gains urgency. Yet existing frameworks for understanding player engagement often lack the precision to distinguish between different kinds of interpretive agency. This talk introduces structural interpretation as a framework for understanding how players engage with the rule structures, affordances, and procedural possibilities of games. We divide it into two forms: constructive interpretation, how players understand and operate within game structures, and transformative interpretation, how players reshape those structures through practices like modding, rule invention, and metagame creation. By reframing appropriation as interpretation rather than resistance, we bridge HCI and game studies approaches to interpretation and agency. To articulate how games invite different modes of structural interpretation, we extend Barthes' distinction between readerly and writerly texts into games through the concepts of playerly and designerly games. Playerly games foreground constructive interpretation, organising engagement toward mastery. Designerly games foreground transformative interpretation, positioning players as co-producers of game structures. We propose these as qualities games exhibit to different degrees, offering a vocabulary for how game design can intentionally support interpretive agency. Bio: link to iGGi profile Talk 2 iGGi Talks: Players Wed 16 Sep 14:00-15:00 Session chair: tba Nicole Levermore Talk Talk 3 Nicole Levermore >> What We Can Learn About the Brain : Through Tetris Abstract: The classic video game Tetris has enormous potential for research on cognition and mental health. It is an engaging, long-duration task that participants can perform with little prior training, and requires a variety of cognitive abilities to play. A Python version of the classic NES Tetris (‘Meta-T’) with millisecond-scale logging, was created by Linstedt and Gray (2015), and we have used this to collect behavioural and neuroimaging data on a wide range of subjects in the lab. We have also generated a Javascript version of Meta-T that can be deployed at scale on the web. In my talk, I will outline how Tetris can be used to study how our attention shifts between long-term cognitive states like ‘engagement’ and ‘flow’ and how these switches might differ in participants with ADHD. I will demonstrate some examples of the Tetris behavioural data I obtain from my experiments, what attention is, and how combining neuroimaging with Tetris is a new direction in understanding the brain and ADHD. Bio: link to iGGi profile Dominik Jeurissen Dominik Jeurissen >> What should I do? An Experimental Onboarding : Advisor for "Total War: Pharaoh" Abstract: Learning to play complex strategy games like Total War can often be overwhelming for new players. Because these games have many deeply interconnected systems, designing tutorials that adequately cover all of them without overwhelming the player is difficult, and updates to the game can quickly render any existing tutorial outdated. In this talk, we explore how to augment existing onboarding systems with an on-demand advisor powered by a small language model (SLM), enabling players to better understand game mechanics, learn systems more effectively, and receive strategic guidance when needed. We begin by outlining the advisor’s architecture, including how we evaluate and constrain its outputs to align with designer intent. We then discuss how we integrated the system to feel like a natural part of the game experience, before exploring the technical challenges of working with small language models and the approaches we used to mitigate their limitations. Bio: link to iGGi profile Talk 4 Lauren Winter Talk 5 Lauren Winter >> The Jingle of Contrasting Constructs: Comparing Measures of Immersion and Challenge from the PXI and IEQ-SF Abstract: Player experience provides an important metric for both game developers and researchers to understand how players are interpreting the game. Whilst previous work has highlighted that some questionnaires are measuring similar concepts with different names, such as immersion and engagement, more work is needed to identify whether constructs with the same names from different measures are comparable in their results. The current work takes survey results from 138 players of League of Legends, and contrasts their scores on immersion and challenge from the Player Experience Inventory with those from the IEQ-SF. The results found that immersion from the PXI only strongly correlated with real-world dissociation, moderately correlated with involvement and did not correlate with challenge from the IEQ-SF. This talk aims to take the reader through popular player experience measures and highlight the similarities and differences between the individual items, to highlight where results may overlap. Bio: link to iGGi profile iGGi Talks: Live-service Games Thu 17 Sep 10:00-10:40 Session chair: tba Lauren Winter 2 Talk 6 Lauren Winter >> Why Pugging in World of Warcraft is Awful (and what you can learn from it) Abstract: Pugging, the term used to refer to matchmaking in World of Warcraft with people you don't know, is a generally miserable experience for players. Players feel they do not achieve their potential in these groups and often progress takes much longer. This talk will cover the literature behind ad hoc groups, why these players may feel negativelyabout these groups, and also analyse the measures Blizzard have taken to identify some of the behavioural difficulties and why they may not work. Suggestions will be given for developing matchmaking teams, alongside the theoretical justification. Bio: link to iGGi profile Tamsin Isaac Tamsin Isaac >> Playing Against the Clock: A Cross-Platform Taxonomy of Limited-Time Events" Abstract: Limited-time events (LTEs) have become a defining feature of contemporary live-service games, shaping when players engage, what they prioritise, and how ongoing game experiences unfold. From seasonal celebrations and battle passes to limited-time collaborations and daily login systems, these events structure play around urgency, routine, and anticipation. Despite their widespread use across both mobile and PC games, LTEs remain inconsistently defined within academic research, limiting systematic comparison between games, genres, and platforms. This talk presents a cross-platform taxonomy of LTEs developed through qualitative content analysis of 2,674 top-charting games across Google Play and Steam. The taxonomy identifies five key dimensions of LTE design: event type, duration, recurrence, reward structure, and monetisation model. Alongside presenting broader patterns across platforms and genres, the talk reflects on what LTEs reveal about contemporary game design and how time-based systems increasingly shape player engagement and experience within live-service games. Bio: link to iGGi profile Talk 7 iGGi Talks: Game AI Thu 17 Sep 13:30-14:10 Session chair: tba Dien Nguyen Talk 8 Dien Nguyen >> JSON-Bag: Game-agnostic Automatic Feature Extraction Abstract: Pugging, JSON Bag-of-Tokens model (JSON-Bag) is a method to generically represent game trajectories by tokenizing their JSON descriptions and automatically extract game features. Using a prototype-based nearest-neighbor search (P-NNS) and Jensen-Shannon distance (JSD) as distance metric, we evaluate the validity of JSON-Bag on six tabletop games---7 Wonders, Dominion, Sea Salt and Paper, Can't Stop, Connect4, Dots and boxes---each over three game trajectory classification tasks. We also demonstrate a practical usage of JSON-Bag as a value function for game-playing agents and how to further enhance JSON-Bag performance with feature selection using Random Forest. Bio: link to iGGi profile Toby Best Toby Best >> ‘Journeys in the Dark’: Exploring Procedural Content Generation for Descent Abstract: This talk demonstrates the implementation of the one-versus-many asymmetric dungeon crawler board game ‘Descent: Journeys in the Dark’ (Second Edition) within the Tabletop Games Framework, and the exploration of how procedural content generation can simulate the creation of custom ‘homebrew’ content found in many tabletop role-playing games. Creating homebrew content can be a time-consuming task, and a challenge to ensure balance between all players whilst remaining fun and enjoyable. Here, we showcase the feasible-infeasible two-population evolutionary algorithm used to create new quests and board layouts for Descent, as well as sample batch runs and playtests, with a final live demonstration of the algorithm in action and playtest with the computer agents in the TAG implementation. Bio: link to iGGi profile Talk 9 Organisers: General Chairs: Laurissa Tokarchuk, Jeremy Gow Programme Chair: Filip Sroka, Toby Best, Ruizhe "Jay" Yu Xia Outreach & Marketing Chair: Prakriti Nayak Poster & Workshop Chair: Dien Nguyen Local Chair: Karl Clarke Tech/Media Chairs: Karl Clarke, Prakriti Nayak Alumni Chair: Nicole Levermore General Management: Susanne Binder, David Hull Admin Support: Shopna Begum, Helen Tilbrook, Oliver Roughton Website/Industry Liaison: Susanne Binder

Details regarding our Keynote Speakers for BiGGi Con 2026. Keynote Speakers Jackie Mulligan Jackie Mulligan Co-Director of Game Republic Ltd >> Multiplayer, Multilevel, Multiverse: the Future of Higher Education and Game Research – an Industry Perspective Abstract: Jackie Mulligan shares the impacts and opportunities of academic research and Higher Education for the games industry, as well as the challenges of academia being lost in translation. The talk will cover positive projects undertaken by Game Republic, the largest games industry network and trade body in The North and its educational partners over the last decade and identify lessons learned. Jackie’s keynote will also use her own journey in a wide variety of sectors internationally including her leap from academia to tech start-up to now heading up Game Republic, highlighting the common and shared pain points and barriers to meaningful collaboration in a world that seeks simple solutions. Bio: Dr Jackie Mulligan is co-Director of Game Republic - the largest and longest established games industry network and trade body in the North of England. The organisation established in 2003 by developers, has been privately funded by studios since 2011, running events, curating festivals, leading trade missions, supporting studios, educators and service providers to connect and providing development support. Prior to working at Game Republic, Jackie has gained a vast amount of experience in different sectors. Jackie ran her own tech platform supporting networks of small independent businesses and local communities and appeared talking all things community and small business at live events and on BBC The One Show, BBC Morning Live, ITV The Tonight Show, BBC Look North, ITV Calendar, ITV Border, BBC Radio 5, BBC Radio 4 and Anglian News, Closer magazine, The Guardian, The Mail, The Guardian and Observer, The Express, The FT, The Telegraph and the i Newspaper. As an academic, Jackie undertook extensive research on events, creativity and innovation internationally and has spoken at conferences in the UK, Europe and the US on organisational culture, creativity and future trends. She has also worked in the Caribbean in tourism and heritage and for the national lottery on funded projects across the UK. C Steinkuehler and K Squire Constance Steinkuehler Professor of Informatics at the University of California; Co-Director of the Games+Learning+Society Center >> Hero, Not Case File: Community-Authored Game Design at Homeboy Game Studio Abstract: The power to author precedes and shapes who and what ultimately gets represented. Court records, probation reports, and program evaluations assign young adults navigating gang involvement and reentry a durable, external identity (in Becker's (1963) terms, the master status of "criminal"), one largely immune to revision by the person living inside it. The same asymmetry operates one register up, at the scale of culture rather than case file. Open-world crime games such as Saints Row (Volition, 2006), True Crime: Streets of LA (Luxoflux, 2003), and the infamous Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (GTA, Rockstar North, 2004) claim gang-affected neighborhoods and their residents as content yet are overwhelmingly authored in studios with no one from those neighborhoods in them. The result is spectacle — game systems and narratives that stylize and exoticize street life for players who will never live it, told by everyone except the people who do. In this presentation, we report on an ongoing project called Homeboy Game Studio, a partnership between our Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Center at UCI and Homeboy Art Academy, the arts wing of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention and reentry organization in the world. Homeboy Art Academy engages gang- and institution-impacted young adults (ages 19-26) in culturally competent, asset-based arts education to inspire transformation and reclaim self-agency by centering their lived experiences and cultural knowledge (Homeboy Industries, n.d.). Homeboy Game Studio is a weekly studio class offered within the Art Academy to young adults referred to us by the Los Angeles Police Department, juvenile detention centers, local school systems, and other community-based organizations. Since November 2025, students in our studio class (roughly 15-35 per class) hold full creative direction over all aspects (art style, world design, narrative beats, mechanics and mission) of a GTA-style open-world game set in their Los Angeles neighborhoods and streets (Boyle Heights/East LA, South Central, and Long Beach/Compton) with a Hero's Journey (Campbell, 1949/2008) narrative arc: “the life” of the streets of LA as ordinary world, Homeboy as threshold into the special world of hope and healing through radical kinship (Boyle, 2017), and the final return home to neighborhoods as hero rather than case file. 5-8 week design sprints are the studio's real curriculum, with generative AI (Anthropic, 2026; OpenAI, 2026; Kuaishou, 2026) currently used for concept art and asset development and a team of UCI game design majors soon serving as developers, thereby placing technical tools and skills in the service of community vision rather than the other way around. Here, we detail both process and dev product, highlighting how mapping character paths from "the life" on LA streets through the ups and downs of transformation into one’s true self is itself a kind of rehearsal of possible selves in actual worlds (Bruner, 1986; Gee, 2003), one tracing the same narrative arc that predicts desistance from crime (Maruna, 2007). Our students do not just write about redemption; they build the mechanics of it, mission by mission and narrative beat by beat. In so doing, we hope to shift community-led critical game design from critique of systems of power from the outside to something more akin to Boal's (1974/2000) rehearsal for reality: practice, undertaken collectively, for a self not yet fully lived. That collapse — between critique and rehearsal, between authorship and identity work — is, more than a final game product, what we hope this studio leaves behind. Bio - Constance Steinkuehler: Constance is a Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine where she researches cognition and social interaction in the context of multiplayer videogames. She is the Co-Director of the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Center at UCI where she teaches courses on games and society, games as social platforms, the sociology of games (in Donovan prison), research methods, and visual design. Current projects include Homeboy Art Academy game design studio, which engages gang-impacted young adults in Los Angeles the practice of critically conscious games design; research on a game-based program in San Quentin prison to foster safety, inclusion, and equanimity; development and production of an inmate-designed tabletop game entitled The Board that explores the parole process from the lived experiences of the incarcerated, and an upcoming 71-chapter and broadly expansive Oxford Handbook of Games & Learning. Constance formerly served as Senior Policy Analyst under the Obama administration in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, advising on videogames and digital media. She is the founder of the Federal Games Guild, a working group across federal agencies using games and simulations as tools for thought, and the Higher Education Video Games Alliance, an academic non-for-profit organization of game-related programs in higher education. Her research has been funded by the Anti-Defamation League, the Samueli Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Universities of Cambridge, Wisconsin-Madison, and California-Irvine. She has published over one hundred articles and book chapters including six conference proceedings, four special journal issues, and two books. She has worked closely with the National Research Council and National Academy of Education on special reports relate to videogames, and her work has been featured in Science, Wired, USA Today, New York Times, LA Times, ABC, CBS, CNN NPR, BBC and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Constance has a PhD in Literacy Studies, an MS in Educational Psychology, and three Bachelor’s Degrees in Mathematics, English, and Religious Studies. Her dissertation was a cognitive ethnography of the MMOs Lineage I and II where she ran a large siege guild. Her husband Dr. Kurt Squire is Co-Director of the GLS center at UCI. They live with their two adolescent gamers in Southern California where they enjoy surfing, hiking, camping, travel, and all manner of headset-wearing, dps-flinging, computer-screened mayhem. Bio - Kurt Squire: Kurt Squire is a professor of informatics and co-director of the Games + Learning + Society Center at UC, Irvine; he earned his PhD in 2004 from Indiana University. Dr Squire’s research is in understanding technology and society from a socio-cultural perspective. Most of his career has been exploring games for learning, including books on theories and approaches to game-based learning (Video Games and Learning, Teachers College Press), and the design of games for impact (Making Games for Impact, MIT Press). Squire has authored over 100 scholarly works around technology, learning, and games. Squire began his career as a blogger, having co-founded joystick101.org and then later writing with Henry Jenkins as a columnist for Computer Games magazine. For about a decade, Squire ran a game development group at GLS which developed 17 game projects and helped spin out Filament Games. In these game projects, he has developed games in collaboration with world renown scientists based on their work, including ecologist Stephen Carpenter, neuroscientist Richard Davidson, and stem cell scientist James Thomsen. His final game, At Play at the Cosmos, published by Norton, was developed with astronomer Adam Frank and was used in college astronomy courses around the world. Squire is a former elementary and Montessori teacher, as well as games journalist. Squire currently teaches courses in UCI’s Game Design and Interactive Media Program and is working on technologies for wellness. More recently, Squire is interested in the interplay between social context and game design, working with youth at the Homeboy Art Academy in Los Angeles designing technologies, including games, responsive to their lived experiences in urban LA. Kurt Squire Professor of Informatics at the University of California; Co-Director of the Games+Learning+Society Center Meaning Machine Thomas Keane Creative Director, Meaning Machine Ben Ackland Technical Director, Meaning Machine >> How to “Bully” AI into Meaningful Gameplay Abstract: Generative AI has the potential to deliver radical new gameplay experiences - featuring emergent stories, unshackled characters, and unprecedented player agency. But it won’t do it without a fight. Left to its own devices, Generative AI will happily churn out incoherent, soulless slop. And contrary to popular belief, bigger models, better prompts and fine-tuning alone won’t solve the problem. So stop trusting the model - and start bullying it. This talk draws on seven years of R&D in the AI gameplay space - as well as new results from Meaning Machine’s ongoing collaborative research with the University of Bristol. It argues that developers are not going far enough in their efforts to wrangle AI - and advocates for the adoption of an additional “bully layer” that forces AI to deliver to a human authorial vision. Because GenAI is not magic: it is a deeply flawed technology. But if you get in its face and bully the hell out of it - to do what you want, when you want - it CAN create experiences that feel like magic. Bio - Thomas Keane: Tom is a game designer whose work focuses on turning speech and language into gameplay mechanics. He co-founded Meaning Machine in 2022 - a game and technology studio which explores the creative potential of author-directed AI characters & quests. In his role as Creative Director, he oversees the development of a range of internal and partner projects that all use generative AI in their core mechanics. Dead Meat, "the interrogation game where you can ask anything", is the studio’s debut. Bio - Ben Ackland: Ben is the Co-Founder and Tech Lead at Meaning Machine, a creatively-driven game tech start-up unlocking all-new gameplay experiences through generative AI. With 20 years of experience in innovative software development, Ben specialises in creating deep, meaningful NPC interactions through Meaning Machine’s proprietary Game Conscious™ technology - empowering both developers and creatives to explore bold new storytelling possibilities, while respecting privacy and enhancing accessibility. Organisers: General Chairs: Laurissa Tokarchuk, Jeremy Gow Programme Chair: Filip Sroka, Toby Best, Ruizhe "Jay" Yu Xia Outreach & Marketing Chair: Prakriti Nayak Poster & Workshop Chair: Dien Nguyen Local Chair: Karl Clarke Tech/Media Chairs: Karl Clarke, Prakriti Nayak Alumni Chair: Nicole Levermore General Management: Susanne Binder, David Hull Admin Support: Shopna Begum, Helen Tilbrook, Oliver Roughton Website/Industry Liaison: Susanne Binder

Details regarding the "Alumni Talk" Speakers for BiGGi Con 2026. Alumni Talks James Goodman James Goodman Director of Tabletop R&D >> What Has Game AI Ever Done for the Romans? Abstract: How much would the ancient Romans have benefited from an understanding of Monte Carlo Tree Search? How well can computer scientists collaborate with classical archaeologists? Come and find out. Bio: James Goodman graduated with a PhD from iGGi in 2025 with work on using statistical planning algorithms in modern tabletop board games. He has since completed a short Postdoc in the Department of Classics at Reading University, whence comes the inspiration for his talk. He is a Director of Tabletop R&D, a Queen Mary spinout company, and a core contributor to the open source Tabletop Games Framework (www.tabletopgames.ai ). Jozef Kulik Jozef Kulik Senior Research & Accessibility Lead @ PlaytestCloud >> A Bird's Eye View: How Remote User Research Affects Hundreds of Games Abstract: Every year thousands of playtest run across games at every stage of development. From concept sketches and greybox prototypes, to vertical slices and launch ready games. That volume underlies a perspective that very few people get to see, which questions are concerning teams, when and how are they asking them, and what tends to change before the consumer sees the game. This talk walks through the stages of game development and the types of research that influence the process at each stage. We'll look at how different research methods are used, what they're good for, what teams sometimes get wrong and how research outcomes often ripple out into design, marketing and commercial outcomes for studios. You'll leave with a more practical understanding of games user research and how its affecting the games industry today. Bio: Joe Kulik is a games user researcher with over a decade of industry experience and a specialism in game accessibility, a subject in which he holds a PhD. As Senior Research and Accessibility Lead at PlaytestCloud, he works with hundreds of studios to shape their research strategy and craft, helping them use player data to de-risk their games. He is a regular speaker and contributor to the games accessibility community. Cristina Dober Cristina Dobre Applied Scientist Researcher @ University of Augsburg >> What’s Happening with the VR Games: The Impact of Social Nonverbal Cues and Embodiment on VR Entertainment Abstract: Virtual reality entertainment, especially in the games industry, shows how creativity and innovation opens new avenues for how players experience gaming. However, there's not only creativity at play here. User's presence, place and plausibility illusions, and their embodiment are core decisive elements for VR entertainment. How can these impact and improve the gaming experience? How can nonverbal behaviours, oftentimes dismissed or little taken into account, impact how VR is experienced? This talk will discuss these open questions, will highlight the current gaps in this field and some ways for moving forward. Bio: Cristina Dobre is a technical multimodal VR and ML researcher with a focus on social interactions in virtual environments. She is interested in the nonverbal cues that influence and shape free-flow social interactions in immersive XR. Currently, she is researching group engagement in VR classrooms, focusing on eye-tracking data. She received her IGGI PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London, based on an interdisciplinary work focusing on the underlying mechanics of VR/AR social interactions that help develop and model empathic and engaging virtual humans. She collaborated with multiple academic and industry partners, such as UCL, Microsoft Research, Dream Reality Interaction and Maze Theory game studios. Carlos Gonzalez Diaz Carlos González Díaz Postdoctoral Researcher @ University of Augsburg >> Eye-tracking in Social VR and What to Take Away for Game Technology Abstract: In this talk I will (1) present a summary of my postdoc research after IGGI, and (2) reflect on the implications of group behaviour in VR games. The first part of the talk will summarise findings from three studies investigating eye-tracking data and machine learning approaches for groups in Social VR. The second part will relate these findings to VR gaming. Come to this talk if you want to be surprised about how we behave with others in VR and make the most of it for your game. Bio: Carlos González Díaz is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Augsburg researching on multimodal VR data and lecturing games programming in the beautiful Bavaria, Germany. He holds a PhD from the iGGi programme (York) on interactive machine learning for VR controls and an MSc in Serious Games from Skövde, the Swedish city that gave birth to Goat Simulator! His interests are diverse, from technical problems such as supervised and reinforcement learning in games, to human behaviour in VR and motion-controlled games. In short, giving a twist to technology from a human lens. He is also very social, come say hi to him if you spot him! Nick Ballou Nick Ballou Research Fellow @ Imperial College >> Open Play: Findings and Lessons from 2 Million Hours of Public Video Games Data Abstract: Open Play is a public dataset of high-resolution video game play data spanning 5 platforms and >35k repeated surveys assessments of sleep, wellbeing, and attention, sourced from 2k US and UK 18–40 year olds. I'll describe the dataset’s structure and analytical affordances, with practical guidance on how researchers can use it to study tech behavior. I'll then present findings suggesting that late-night gaming is weakly with sleep outcomes, and that reported wellbeing experiences both in and outside games do not relate to subsequent play behaviour—patterns that run counter to prevailing theoretical accounts. Finally, I’ll reflect on lessons learned from collaborating with games industry partners on contentious research topics, and developing open source data collection methods in parallel. Bio: Nick Ballou is a fellow at Imperial College London who is professionally concerned with when/how video games are good vs bad for you (tldr: it's complicated), and personally concerned with his backend volleys on the padel court. His current project uses behavioral trace data, causal inference, and intensive longitudinal surveys to support healthy adolescent gaming habits. Nathan Hughes Nathan Hughes Research Associate @ University of York >> The Quality of Safety is... Games? An Alumn's Journey from Games Research to Safety Science Abstract: In 1967, Prof. David Hazen once said, "if we knew what it was we would learn, it just wouldn’t be research, would it?" This is certainly true of games research, and the many places it can take you. In this talk, I overview my journey from open world games to my current research on human-AI teaming in safety-critical contexts. Despite the seemingly vast differences between these fields, I have found my time in games has given me key skills to understand this new and increasingly important field. Attendees can expect to learn about the similarities between games and safety, the theories and philosophies of research gained that were most insightful, and the overlaps in methodological techniques that can be applied to both. The talk concludes with a simple takeaway: if we knew where our research would take us, it just wouldn't be fun, would it? Bio: Nathan Hughes is a Research Associate at the Centre for Assuring Autonomy (CfAA) at the University of York, researching the safety of human-AI teaming. They have a keen interest in how people use and experience technology, and have worked in several domains including healthcare, air traffic management, and video games. This cross-disciplinary experience has been driven by an ongoing fascination with human decision-making, and the ways in which the systems we build either help or hinder it. Joseph Walton Rivers Joseph Walton-Rivers Lecturer @ Falmouth University >> AI for Board Games Abstract: This talk will provide an overview of current interesting areas for board and digital games research for computational intelligence. It will explore some possible avenues and motivations for future work in this space. Bio: Joseph Walton-Rivers is an AI researcher based at Falmouth University. He has run the Hanabi competition at CoG, and was in the first iGGi cohort based at the University of Essex. Organisers: General Chairs: Laurissa Tokarchuk, Jeremy Gow Programme Chair: Filip Sroka, Toby Best, Ruizhe "Jay" Yu Xia Outreach & Marketing Chair: Prakriti Nayak Poster & Workshop Chair: Dien Nguyen Local Chair: Karl Clarke Tech/Media Chairs: Karl Clarke, Prakriti Nayak Alumni Chair: Nicole Levermore General Management: Susanne Binder, David Hull Admin Support: Shopna Begum, Helen Tilbrook, Oliver Roughton Website/Industry Liaison: Susanne Binder

BiGGi Con 2026 update: iGGi collaboration opportunities with the games industry Industry Info iGGi is excited to be working with a wide range of partners from Industry and Academia to facilitate Knowledge Exchange. These collaborations take shape in multiple ways. Forms of Knowledge Exchange we particularly welcome and focus on at this stage of our CDT's life are listed below: iGGi Conference: the next (and foreseeably final) iGGi Conference takes place 15-17 September 2026 at Queen Mary University of London. The iGGi Conference is an annual public event (registration necessary). Existing iGGi PG Researchers present their current work via exhibition and talks. Keynote speakers and panelists include members of Games Industry and iGGi Alumni. The iGGi Conference has become a niche networking platform for the Games Industry and the wider Games Community. iGGi Networking: t he idea is that PG Researchers and Industry Members get an opportunity for informal 1-2-1 conversation, for either general chat, Knowledge Exchange, finding placement matches, or post-PhD positions. iGGi Placements: during their time at iGGi, each PhD Researcher will spend a minimum of 8 weeks (but typically around 3+ months) on placement. Companies who so far hired iGGi PG Researchers for this type of Knowledge Exchange include big players such as Google Deep Mind, Microsoft, and Sony, but also a number of SMEs. iGGi Seminars/Workshops: iGGi Seminars and Workshops are held in regular intervals around the year in various formats (i.e. online, in person, hybrid). These include Talks by invited guest speakers from industry or academia, Workshops organised by either our researchers/supervisors or one of our partners, Panels with up to four contributors, Demos on a specific technical topic or developed game, Hackathons on a problem defined by an Industry Partner, and Masterclasses. Post-doc Positions: with a now steady trickle of iGGi PG Researchers who are completing their doctorate, we can help promote post-doc positions which an Industry Partner wishes to advertise; in some cases, we can even put the partner in touch with a potentially matching candidate. Sponsorship of Events: Industry Partners can sponsor either a whole iGGi event or an element thereof, in turn for a customised return (e.g., marketing). iGGi can provide further info on request.

BiGGi Con 2026: info for iGGi Alumni ...for iGGi Alumni BiGGi Con 2026 is set to be a celebration of all things iGGi, and of course, the many, many iGGi PGRs who have by now turned iGGi Alumni are an absolutely crucial part in the story of iGGi! If you are one of them, we do hope you can join on at least one if not all of the conference days and/or the evening socials. One of BiGGi Con 2026's key goals is to start projecting into a post-funding "iGGi future" by drawing from the rich iGGi past, so as to turn this programme's legacy into a lasting one that can live on beyond the grant's lifespan. Here's a list of programme features that have a specific focus on iGGi Alumni journeys, provide opportunity for networking between iGGi Alumni and the current iGGi PGRs, and/or aim at building and nurturing a sustained iGGi Alumni network. >> Alumni Talks When? >> Day 1 + Day 2 + Day 3 BiGGi Con 2026 will see a total of 7 Alumni Talks spread over all three conference days. Check out the Alumni Talks page for details. We look forward to hearing where their paths took them after their time at iGGi. >> Panels When? >> Day 1 + Day 2 A selection of Panels will have iGGi Alumni speakers. More information to follow, so watch this space! >> Workshops When? >> Day 1 + Day 2 + Day 3 A number of Workshops are organised and run by iGGi Alumni. More information to follow, so watch this space! >> Alumni Network Workshop When? >> Day 1 (evening) For those of you not already participating in (or running!) one of the parallel workshops, this particular one will brainstorm on What to Do With iGGi's Legacy . We would love to hear ideas and input from as many iGGis (Alumni or otherwise) as possible, including about how the community can live on and stay connected in a beneficial (and fun) way! >> Alumni Mixers When? >> Day 1 + Day 2 We've dedicated two of the coffee breaks to setting focus on mixing with Alumni. Details to follow! >> Alumni "Speed Networking" When? >> Day 2 (evening) As part of the Day 2 Evening Social (Games Night), there will be a short and upbeat "speed networking" event, which will work almost like an ordinary speed dating session, just that you'll be fishing for a research buddy or industry contact as opposed to a love companion. >> Evening Social Dinner with special focus on Alumni networking When? >> Day 1 (evening) Note that this is an internal event to which only specific members of the iGGi Community are invited (see registration form). This social dinner is an opportunity for iGGi PGRs to informally connect with those who have been through (or partly through) a similar PhD journey. If you are an iGGi Alum and would like to get involved in any way not listed above, or if you think you've not yet been added to the iGGi Alumni Network email list but would like to be added, please contact iggi-admin@york.ac.uk For any Alumni-related queries, you can also reach out to >> BiGGi Con's Alumni Chair Nicole Levermore , an iGGi PGR who is presently compiling 5-6 "iGGi Case Studies" and who is also your current main contact for the iGGi Alumni Network. We look forward to seeing you in September! (Fingers crossed you can make it!!)

Mark the Date! 15-17 September Email Enter your email address so that we can email you when registration opens Submit