Playful by Design is a local and global community of practice with shared and overlapping interests in game-relevant research, design, pedagogy, and technology. As a network, it welcomes multidisciplinary activities pursued by teachers, scholars, artists, designers, and "3^rd space" professionals, within their own disciplines and in their own ways. Through creative collaborations, the sharing of resources, the development of team-based studio work and other experiential learning, this approach facilitates the emergence of transdisciplinary and glocal aspirations among students, faculty and professionals. These include shared values of accessibility and inclusion, which are reflected in how we teach and conduct research, and in the design and creation of games, simulations, and other interactive and immersive experiences that address the critical shared challenges of our times.

The 2026 Symposium will be hosted at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, Spain, May 28-29, 2026, with the theme Games Beyond Entertainment.  This symposium will feature a Round Table format to promote critical discussion that will lead to collaborative projects and papers.  Rather than proposing papers and presentations, participants should submit an abstract with ideas for one or more roundtables and bring experiences and thoughts to share in group discussions on a selection of topics. You are invited to share and showcase what's happening in your departments, courses, studios, and labs right now, as well as what you imagine your work and the the future of games may look like.

Suggested (but not necessarily final) Round Table topics:

• Mission, in the context of trends in the global game industry
• Learning Goals, Outcomes and Curriculum
• Pedagogical philosophy
• Internship opportunities and requirements
• Research (Game Studies)
• Intellectual Property of students
• Corporate Partnerships (locally and globally)
• Cross-institutional collaboration (locally and globally)

Submission Guidelines

Since we plan to collaboratively develop papers using the symposium as a launch pad, the submission process begins with an abstract submitted before the conference and then continues after the conferences with paper submissions:

• Abstracts with ideas for Round Table discussions and subsequent papers. - Due April 11, 2026
• Final Program and selected abstracts notification - May 8, 2026
• Symposium - May 28-29, 2026
• Full Paper Submission - July 31, 2026
• Notification of Acceptance for the Journal - November 30, 2026
• Publication of Special Issue in International Journal of Games and Social Impact: March 2027

Organizing Committee

• Lisa Bievenue, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA
• João Alves de Sousa, Universidade Lusófona, Porto, Portugal
• María Zapata Cáceres, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to bievenue@illinois.edu