EPIC-WE Project: Young People at the Center of Cultural Creation through Video Games

European project promotes youth participation in culture through Game Jams and collaborative design.

The active participation of young people in culture is gaining new impetus with the EPIC-WE project (Empowered Participation through Ideating Cultural Worlds and Environments), an initiative funded by the Horizon Europe program.

Coordinated in Portugal by Conceição Costa, associate professor and principal researcher at the Center for Research in Applied Communication, Culture and New Technologies (CICANT), the hub in Portugal includes UL as a research partner, Óbidos Town Hall (CMO) in the role of cultural institution and BATTLESHEEP (BS) representing the creative industry. In addition to Óbidos, the project has hubs in Aarhus (Denmark) and Hilversum (Holland).

EPIC-WE aims to develop new models and design kits that promote cultural collaboration, involving young people, cultural institutions, creative industries and higher education institutions. The initiative highlights the importance of young people creating games about European cultural heritage and values as a way of appropriating and recreating culture.

“In EPIC-WE, we see games as culture, through culture and for culture“, as well as aiming to innovate by using a quadruple helix ecosystem, which promotes synergies between local authorities, cultural institutions, creative industries, academia and citizens (in this case young people)” explains Conceição Costa.