Do You Create Games or Immersive Experiences? Want Your Content to be Accessible for a Wider Audience? Learn, Develop and Apply Inclusive Design Superpowers? Enhance the Reach and Quality of Your Experiences? And Get Paid to Do It?

If so, the Inclusive Design for Immersive Experiences Accelerator Challenge is for you! 

The Accelerator is an open innovation competition. Its purpose is to speed up the adoption and evolution of inclusive innovation within games and other immersive experiences. It is a co-production between InGAME, StoryFutures Academy and our Challenge Sponsor, market-leading inclusive insight, design and innovation agency Open Inclusion. 

InGAME invites gamemaking and immersive content creating SMEs from across Scotland to apply to the competition. Up to 5 Scottish SMEs will be selected and funded to participate in a four-day Inclusive Innovation Lab to be upskilled in the practice of inclusive design and innovation. 

After final pitching, one Scottish SME wins the competition, £35K and entry to the Inclusive Design Accelerator. The accelerator runs for eight weeks and supports the SME to test and embed inclusive innovation concepts and design practices within its existing, near-to-market IP. 

Our Challenge Partner – Open Inclusion

Open Inclusion is an inclusive insight, design and innovation agency based in London and operating globally. It was founded in 2015 to infuse design with more inclusively human insights. It helps organizations identify opportunities to design better experiences. Experiences that work more consistently for all, through pan disability and age-inclusive community engagement and research.

Why Get Involved?

  • Get paid £1K to learn a new set of inclusive design skills and practices that can be applied to any future immersive project.
  • Potentially win an additional £35K to embedded inclusive innovation and design in your existing or near-market IP to: 
    • Increase accessibility for more users
    • Enhance user experience quality for all users
    • Increase your audience/market share 
    • Develop design competencies that give you a competitive edge. 
  • You also get to work with InGAME – Scotland’s world-class R&D center for games innovation – and Open Inclusion. 
  • You retain the rights to all the IP you bring to – or create in – the competition. 
  • You experience a journey that helps develop other critical competencies – such as strategy, communication, investor readiness. 

Who Should Apply?

  • This open call is designed to appeal to the widest range of applicants who possess the required competencies and track record. 

    We welcome: 

    • Game Development SMEs 
    • Immersive Content SMEs. 

    All SMEs must have their main place of business and operational activity in Scotland. 

What do we mean by ‘Immersive’?

InGAME defines immersive content as any experience that engages people in virtual, simulated or augmented realities. This may be through games, game-adjacent technologies and/or the principles of game design – or other means. 

Want to Know More?

Explore the Inclusive Design for Immersive Experiences Challenge and if you have any questions, book a meeting with the InGAME team! 

How do I Apply?

  1. Register your interest at Inclusive Design for Immersive Experiences Challenge page to access application materials for Scotland 
  2. Read all guidance provided (this includes full Challenge Brief, Application Guidance and Heads of Terms) 
  3. Complete your application and submit a Pitch Deck

Done!

Challenge Closing Date: 14 March, 9:00 GMT

About InGAME

InGAME is the AHRC center for research and innovation in games and immersive technologies. Its purpose is to drive growth and innovation within the Dundee videogames cluster through experimental research and innovative models of collaborative R&D between industry and academia. 

Funded by the AHRC’s Creative Industries Clusters Programme as part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and the Scottish Funding Council, InGAME is embedded in Dundee’s vibrant and thriving videogames cluster. Led by Abertay University, in collaboration with the Universities of Dundee and St Andrews, InGAME’s industry partnership network includes Sony Interactive Entertainment, Microsoft, Roblox, Outplay Entertainment, 4J Studios, the BBC, Innovate UK, Creative Dundee, Creative Scotland, Dundee City Council Scottish Enterprise, V&A Dundee, Ukie and Women in Games.