GaLA - Games and Learning Alliance is the Network of Excellence on "Serious Games" funded by the European Union in FP7 – IST ICT, Technology Enhanced Learning with a budget of 5.65m Euros.
GaLA has started on October 11th 2010, with a three-day kick-off meeting, and will last 4 years. The official website is being set-up.
GaLA gathers the cutting-the-edge European Research & Development organizations on Serious Games, involving 31 partners from 14 countries. Partnership involves universities, research centers, and developer and education industries.
GaLA motivation stems from the acknowledgment of the potentiality of Serious Games for education and training and the need to address the challenges of the main stakeholders of the Serious Games European landscape.
GaLA aims to shape the scientific community and build a European Virtual Research Centre aimed at gathering, integrating, harmonizing and coordinating research on Serious Games and disseminating knowledge, best practices and tools as a reference point at an international level.
The other key focuses of the project are the support to deployment in the actual educational and training settings; the fostering of innovation and knowledge transfer through research-business dialogue; and the development high-quality didactics on Serious Games by promoting and supporting courses at Master and PhD level.
The GaLA Consortium
The consortium covers a wide range of topical knowledge on research and development in Serious Games. It is a multidisciplinary consortium of 31 partners, coming from 14 countries all over the EU: Italy, Germany, Austria, Finland, UK, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, Portugal, France, Romania and Ireland.
It comprises representing both universities, research centers, SMEs and large Enterprises, thus representing a mix of the interests and skills involved in the Serious Games development and deployment chain, allowing an effective synergy between research, education and business.