The ROCKET team held many presentations and workshops at several events.
ENLIGHT Regional Academy 2026
On June 9, 2026, ROCKET members Kjell Hedgard Hugaas, Sarah Lynne Bowman, and Weronika Szatkowska ran the project’s Conflict Styles workshop for a mixed group of public servants and educators at the ENLIGHT Regional Academy in Visby, Sweden. Participants attended from Uppsala University, Region Gotland, Universiteit Gent, City of Ghent, COMON at Ghent, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Tartu City Government, University of Tartu, and Universität Bern. We are thrilled to connect with people from multiple sectors to build collaborations and increase our impact beyond higher education.
Nordic Larp Research Seminar 2026
The ROCKET project team presented at this year´s Nordic Larp Research Seminar as part of AWIG Knutpunkt 2026! Here, ROCKET´s Alexandra Schreiber, Sarah Lynne Bowman and Kjell Hedgard Hugaas introduced the ROCKET Erasmus+ project and the choice and design of research methods to examine courses for students, teachers and administrative staff, followed by a discussion with the audience and expert reviewers. It was great to be part of this exciting research seminar!
Play Forward Festival 2025
During PlayForward Festival 2024 in Goettingen, Germany, members of the ROCKET consortium introduced the project to a wider audience and facilitated educational role-playing scenarios on conflict transformation and diversity, equity and inclusion. In an interactive workshop, participants examined a range of styles for engaging with conflict, including their own, in relevant work and educational contexts. The Erasmus+ project ROCKET was also featured in an informative talk at the Forum Wissen which focused on games and learning at the University of Goettingen, drawing special attention to the unique learning experiences that role-playing scenarios in ROCKET can hold. The dissemination event was an amazing opportunity for Erasmus+ ROCKET to connect with the local community in the city of Goettingen and to raise awareness for conflict as an opportunity for learning, change and growth.
Forage Center’s International Peacebuilding Seminar
On Dec. 5, 2025, Alexandra Schreiber (UGOE), Kjell Hedgard Hugaas (UU), and Sarah Lynne Bowman (UU) presented at the Forage Center’s International Peacebuilding Seminar! The team shared data gathered from the recent ROCKET student, teacher, and admin staff trainings about Critical Virtual Exchanges. They also discussed benefits and drawbacks of the method as advice to the international attendees. We are grateful to the Forage Center for Peacebuilding and Humanitarian Education for letting us share our work!
9th Coloquio de Estudios de Juegos de Rol
Alexandra Schreiber and Sarah Lynne Bowman from the ROCKET consortium presented results from the 2025 Critical Virtual Exchange experience for students at the 9th Coloquio de Estudios de Juegos de Rol. This conference was organized by the Red de Investigadores de Juegos de Rol (RIJR) and taking place in a hybrid format at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, and at the Centro Cultural Paco Urondo, in Argentina. A recording of the presentation is below, we hope you enjoy!
Edu-Larp Conference 2025
We are proud to have represented Erasmus+ ROCKET last week at the Edu-Larp Conference 2025 in Oslo, Norway on March 12, 2025!
Sarah Lynne Bowman from Uppsala University helped co-host the conference, providing a short presentation on EU funded projects on educational role-playing games, including ROCKET, alongside Björn-Ole Kamm from 京都大学（Kyoto University）. Then, the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen’s Alexandra Schreiber shared insights from her dissertation project, which features educational game experiences in the intercultural learning classroom, including ROCKET’s RPGs for conflict transformation and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Uppsala University’s Josefin Westborg shared insights from her Master’s thesis about practices from edu-larp educators and the learning theories behind them.
We hope that these presentation spark interest in the use of RPGs for educational purposes in the future, especially as they apply to inclusion-related conflicts.
ENLIGHT Teaching & Learning Pre-Conference
The ROCKET team also had a fantastic time running their workshop for the Erasmus+ ENLIGHT Teaching & Learning Pre-Conference! Members of the consortium from the Universities of Göttingen, Uppsala, and Groningen came together in Tartu, Estonia to guide participants through the basics of Critical Virtual Exchange, conflict transformation, conflict styles role-playing, and next steps on how to design scenarios for their classroom settings. An excellent conversation ensued regarding the use of these tools and concepts in the participants’ educational contexts.
IVEC Conference 2024
The Erasmus+ project ROCKET took part of this year´s IVEC conference (International Virtual Exchange Consortium) at October 21, 2024. During this fully online conference, members of the ROCKET team facilitated an interactive 90-minute workshop featuring Critical Virtual Exchange, DEI and educational role-play for conflict transformation: an innovative pedagogical approach in the conference track “Virtual Exchange for Global Change”.
ENLIGHT Teaching & Learning Conference 2024
This year’s Teaching & Learning Conference took place at the University of Tartu from 7th until 9th October. The 2024 Conference highlights the topic of “Creativity and Innovation”. The overview below shows ROCKET colleagues who facilitated workshops at the conference.
- 7th Oct, 9:30 – 12:30 Serious Games: This workshop will explain how to design and run transformative role-playing games for the university classroom. (Sarah Lynne Bowman, University of Uppsala).
- 7th Oct, 9:30 – 12:30 Curriculum Design in ENLIGHT – Focussing on virtual internationalization: In this interactive workshop, we aim for a joint exploration of the concept of ‘curriculum’ and some common language around curriculum design in the context of the ENLIGHT alliance. (Philipp Freyer, University of Göttingen)
- 7th Oct, 14:00 – 17:00 Innovation through critical virtual Exchange – The creative use of roleplaying games in ROCKET: This workshop will initiate active engagement on concepts and experiences from the Erasmus+ project ROCKET. (Sarah Lynne Bowman, University of Uppsala / Josefin Westborg, University of Uppsala /Carole Fuller, University of Groningen /Alexandra Schreiber, University of Göttingen / Philipp Freyer, University of Göttingen).
- 8th Oct, 15:15 – 16:45 Fostering Creativity and Innovation – The Role of Communities of Practice in Higher Education Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives: Discover the transformative potential of Communities of Practice in HE diversity and inclusion. (Carole Fuller, University of Groningen, poster presentation).
PlayForward Festival 2024
The first dissemination event for the Erasmus+ project ROCKET happened during PlayForward Festival 2024 in Goettingen/Germany. During this event, members of the ROCKET consortium joined to introduce the project to a wider audience and facilitate educational role-playing scenarios on conflict transformation and diversity, equity and inclusion.
In an interactive workshop, participants examined a range of styles for engaging with conflict, including their own, in relevant work and educational contexts. Through facilitated role-playing scenarios, attendees were invited to engage in taking perspective on underlying sources for conflict and building empathy within the group of players. This embodied learning experience was reflected through a guided debriefing session, to inform participants´ present and future actions.
During the PlayForward festival the Erasmus+ project ROCKET was also featured in an informative talk at the Forum Wissen which focused on games and learning at the University of Goettingen, drawing special attention to the unique learning experiences that role-playing scenarios in ROCKET can hold. The dissemination event was an amazing opportunity for Erasmus+ ROCKET to connect with the local community in the city of Goettingen and to raise awareness for conflict as an opportunity for learning, change and growth.
