‘Only Connect’ Helen W. Kennedy for President of DiGRA What would I offer as President? 1. A commitment to work to achieve the agreed mission: DiGRA should: * Promote the understanding and visibility of play as both a form of cultural expression and of public participation for change in society. * Promote the understanding of digital games, and playfulness as an accepted form of communication. * Establish a member-based support network that promotes research focusing on digital games within and across traditional disciplines and academic borders. * Promote a cross-disciplinary and multi-directional approach to game research, and seek to strengthen and uphold a multiplicity of discourses in the study of digital games. * Develop DiGRA's international scope by providing opportunities for collegial interaction across national boundaries. * Provide a meeting point for scholars and researchers from academia, industry and gamer communities studying digital games. * Provide a forum for members to promote, publish, and share their work with others, by supporting the organization of conferences, workshops, seminars and symposia. * Provide members and community with both online and offline spaces for discussions on issues of game research, ethics, and practices leading to common criteria.1 Furthermore, as President my priorities would be to: 2. Improve access to support and modes of participation * Support the development of local and national chapters as a mechanism for enabling greater range of opportunities for networking, mentoring and research collaboration. * Increase the validity of membership by improving range of benefits and services available to members. 3. Improve the viability and visibility of games research * Research is heavily dependent on funding and yet there is still a great deal to be done to improve the recognition of games scholarship within funding bodies/funding councils. Peer review colleges (in North America, UK & Europe) rarely include anyone with sufficient expertise to properly assess the quality of funding applications. DiGRA could work with national chapters to develop advocacy expertise to promote the inclusion of games scholars within these colleges. 4. Establish clearly defined roles for board members and improve the spread of the workload within this group in order to improve the efficiency of the board in representing and supporting membership. 5. Work to identify funding mechanisms through which to support graduate students and early career researchers. (Nationally and internationally). If elected I would co-opt the departing President to remain in an advisory role to ensure a smooth handover and to ensure that I have the opportunity to benefit from the expertise developed through this role. Some background – I have been studying and researching games since 1993. I have published on the subject of feminist readings of Lara Croft, female Quake players and game studies more generally. I am the author (with Jon Dovey) of Game Cultures which was published in May 2006. I have a track record in managing research projects and research collaborations. I have been the Chair of the Play Research Group at UWE which has organised a number of international conferences and symposia on the subject of computer games. I have been a member of DiGRA since it was established and was elected to the board in 2005 and since this time I have been an active member and key advocate of games research. I have organised two previous events based on the future and direction of DiGRA – DiGRA futures at Playful Subjects May 2005 and DiGRA Futures II at DiGRA 2005 in Vancouver. I also contributed to the DiGRA Futures III panel in Tokyo in 2007. I have been an active member of the Women in Games steering committee that organises an annual conference and supports networking and mentoring events for women in all aspects of games – artists, designers, developers and players. I commission and curate the academic strand of the annual WiG conference. Helen W. Kennedy is Deputy Head of Department of Culture, Media and Drama at the University of the West of England. Helen.kennedy@uwe.ac.uk 1 Mission statement developed by Torill Mortensen and others as part of the ‘Mission Working Party’ established at DiGRA AGM Tokyo 2007 ?? ?? ?? ??