Guidance

Video Games Research Framework

Published 30 May 2023

This Framework is provided as a best-practice supporting tool for research into video games to help our understanding on how video games have impacted individuals, consumers, communities, industries and societies, and to support researchers to deliver shared research objectives.

Foreword by Professor Tom Rodden, Chief Scientific Advisor to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Video games are an important part of our daily lives, and of the UK’s social and cultural fabric. The games sector sits at the intersection between the creative and technology sectors, and has pioneered innovation and new tech that has created spillover benefits in industries such as film, TV and fashion. The games industry supports the UK’s economic growth, contributing an estimated £2.8 billion (GVA) to the UK economy in 2019, and fosters new skills in its players and workforce that will be important in growing both the digital and creative economies of the future.

Video games research spans many disciplines and fields, making this an exciting area that continues to develop with a growing research community. Research in this space engages a broad set of disciplines from computer science, social science, education and health to interactive entertainment law and culture and the creative arts; providing opportunities for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches across these spaces.

As Chief Scientific Adviser, my role is to ensure government policy is informed by the best possible evidence, which is what this Video Games Research Framework aims to facilitate. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has worked collaboratively with the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Research Councils, other government departments, academia, and industry, both within and outside of the UK, to develop this Framework.

The Framework aims to facilitate and promote high quality research on video games, underpinned by the principles of inclusivity, openness, transparency and independence. It does so in 3 main areas:

• to develop a shared understanding of research priorities, topics and questions, and setting out shared priorities with Research Councils and their funding streams

• to promote and share best practice in methodologies, research standards and open science; and

• to highlight how ethical data capture and data sharing practices can support improved research

Developing the Framework has helped build a new community of academics around video games from across disciplines, and has helped to forge new links between academia and industry. Through extensive collaboration with these groups, we have fostered ongoing engagement between them to support future high quality research into video games.

I am confident this Framework provides a platform for excellent research, benefitting policymakers, the games sector and ultimately everyone who engages with games and their increasingly important role in our lives.

Introduction

Video games and research

The video games industry in the UK and internationally is flourishing, with video games being an increasingly popular and important part of the UK’s economic, social and cultural landscape, and the sector is an important part of the UK’s creative industries. 60% of UK adults aged 16 and over, and 91% of children and young people between 3-15 years old, play video games.

This government recognises how video games have reached many aspects of our daily lives, including within the economy and in the development of new skills, technology, learning and education, and health. However, we recognise that we still do not fully understand the outcomes from these different interactions with games, and what implications these might have for our society and economy. We want to see additional research, supported by improved access to data, to enable this understanding.

What is the Framework for?

A research framework sets out a structure to support the delivery of research, including guidance and examples of good research practices. Researchers following a research framework should observe the guidance, principles and expectations set out in the framework.

The Video Games Research Framework provides best practice guidance for setting up and running high quality independent research on video games. It can be used by a range of different research disciplines, including for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research, to better enable innovation in research on video games.

The overall objective of the Framework is to facilitate and promote high quality independent research on video games and emerging game-related technologies. This research will generate new and diverse evidence to support and inform players, the games industry, academics and the government about video games and the future development and growth of the video games sector.

One specific focus for government policymakers is to develop better evidence on whether there are potential positive, negative, or any or no impacts - at various levels of significance or influence on different individuals and groups - of different features within video games. This includes exploring the positive economic and social potential of games, whilst considering their importance with regards to online safety for children and adults, as set out in the Government response to the call for evidence on loot boxes in video games.

To achieve this overall objective, there are 3 chapters:

1. Core research priorities and topics - to set out and develop a shared understanding of priority research areas across different research interests and disciplines. This includes the fundamental question of how and why people interact with video games. We have identified shared priorities with Research Councils and their funding streams.

2. Research standards and methodologies - to promote and share best practice of methodologies, research standards and open science principles. This includes setting standards for ethical research, best practice approaches to research and using open research principles throughout the research lifecycle.

3. Data ethics, data privacy and data sharing - to highlight how ethical data capture and data sharing shall increase transparency in research, and follow open research principles to support best research practices. This includes demonstrating data ethics and data protections compliance and practices, and best practice data sharing standards for academics, players, and the video games industry.

Who can use the Framework?

The Framework can be used by those interested in understanding the outcomes of different interactions with video games, including:

• academics and researchers within video games research and other disciplines, throughout the process of planning, implementing, and evaluating a research project

• government policy, regulatory and research practitioners to develop and commission better research and create larger and diverse evidence bases into the impacts of video games

• professional practitioners such as clinicians and educators

• video games companies, including third party services for video games companies, and professionals including developers, publishers and platforms. This includes, but is not limited to, industry researchers, software designers, software engineers, and artists; and

• players and other members of the general public interested in learning more about research into video games

Principles

Four principles should underpin all aspects of research, to support independent and ethical research that is in the public good.

1. Inclusivity: The Framework aims to build better relationships and drive collaboration between academia, industry, and the wider public when researching video games.

2. Openness: The Framework follows ‘open research’ principles, as set out by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which state that research should be as open as possible and only closed when necessary. Open research helps to support and uphold transparency, openness, verification and reproducibility - improving public value, research integrity, re-use and innovation across the whole lifecycle of research. This helps to support collaboration within and across disciplines and is integral to a healthy research culture and environment.
   
   The Framework also follows ‘open research data’ principles, designed to allow data to be freely accessed, used, modified, and shared, including where there is appropriate acknowledgement as required. As a minimum, all research should meet FAIR Data Principles: to make data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable.

3. Transparency: The Framework focuses on responsible innovation principles, as outlined in the government’s policy paper on addressing trust in public data usage. We believe that public consent is crucial to the long-term sustainability of data sharing activity. Data provided by individuals for use in research projects should be appropriately shared and protected throughout and after the project’s completion. Further information on ethical research, including protecting research integrity, can be found in Chapter 2.

4. Independence: Researchers should consider and declare potential conflicts of interest in developing their research to ensure that it is within the public interest. Researchers may wish to use the UK Research Integrity Office Code of Practice for Research guidance. This includes using the Checklist for Researchers, which lists the key points of good practice for a research project and is applicable to all subject areas.

Independence in research

To protect the independence of research and ethical research practices, and to ensure research supports the public interest, the Framework follows UKRI’s best practice on research integrity and conflict of interest policies throughout.

Concordat to support research integrity

All researchers should follow the Concordat to support research integrity, to protect good research conduct and governance.

The Concordat outlines 5 important commitments that those engaged in research can make to help ensure that the highest standards of rigour and integrity are maintained. The Concordat also makes a clear statement about the responsibilities of researchers, employers and funders in maintaining high standards in research.

All parties who undertake and facilitate research in line with the Framework are expected to follow these principles.

Knowledge Exchange Concordat

All researchers and industry representatives are recommended to follow the Knowledge Exchange Concordat, to support sharing of knowledge, expertise and ideas between universities and their non-academic partners. The purpose of the Concordat, led by Universities UK and GuildHE with over 136 higher education institutions signatories, is to recognise, develop and improve the many different ways higher education providers engage in knowledge exchange.

Confidentiality

Information on Commercial Interests in relation to Freedom of Information requests can be found under Chapter 3.2.

How the Research Framework has been developed

DCMS has developed the Framework following stakeholder engagement with academics from a range of research disciplines, other government departments, Research Councils, and representatives from the video games industry including trade bodies and UK-based games companies. This has enabled the Framework to meet the needs of different stakeholders, and to support engagement across stakeholder communities to continue the development of independent research.

We intend this to stimulate the development of a research community that drives collaboration between different researchers, the Research Councils and the video games industry.

Practice for updating the Framework

The Framework may be updated as necessary to reflect engagement between DCMS, other government departments including the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the research community, the Research Councils, and the video games sector.

Some policy areas, including standards for research, will be updated by their policy owners including; UKRI and the Research Councils, the Intellectual Property Office, the Information Commissioner’s Office, and Universities UK. Links are provided with the aim that users of the Framework will be signposted to the most up to date guidance.

If you have any questions on the Framework, please contact: enquiries@dcms.gov.uk

Chapter 1: Research Topics and Priorities

1.1 Purpose

Chapter 1 focuses on research topics and priorities that have been identified as core areas in need of further research and evidence bases to be generated. These questions provide a high level, strategic view of the type of research needed to support government policymakers, academics, players and video games companies.

These research topics and priorities have been framed so that researchers may wish to consider one or more of the approaches below in developing research to respond to these topics and priorities:

• video games or video games-adjacent experiences

• the intersectionality of equality, equity, diversity and inclusion throughout these topics and priorities, including considerations with regards to people who have protected characteristics as set out in the Equality Act 2010

• broader contexts for how video games interact with societies, cultures, and everyday life; and

• considerations from a regional, national, transnational or international perspective

We have taken this approach to encourage innovation and independence in research, to enable anyone to conduct research into video games, to support collaboration across disciplines, and to stimulate and encourage academics, research institutions, funding bodies and the video games sector to commission and produce high quality, impartial research that offers a diverse range of perspectives and that is within the public interest.

This is not a fully comprehensive research topic list. Researchers can also use this Framework to guide their own research into video games in other topics.

The research topics outlined in the Framework should be read in conjunction with the Areas of Research Interest published and regularly refreshed by DCMS, and those published by other departments, including the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

Definitions

We have provided the below definitions to support these research topics. As video games research is a developing research discipline, we anticipate that some of these definitions may be amended over time. We will keep these definitions under review:

We define ‘player’ as any person who has participated in a video game, for any period of time. We appreciate there are broader ways in which people interact with and experience video games.

We define ‘groups of players’ as any persons who form a group who participate in a video game within a shared online space at the same time, for any period of time.

We define ‘video games’ as a game or activity played on an electronic device, in which the player, or groups of players, control moving pictures on a screen (including hand-held devices, personal computers and head-mounted displays).

We define the ‘video games sector’ as individuals and organisations who create, develop and publish video games.

We define ‘carers’ as a responsible adult/guardian for a child or young person. This may also be defined as a carer for an adult, and researchers will want to clarify the intended parameters of their research.

We define ‘games culture’ as the characteristics and practices associated with participating in video games.

We define ‘apps (an abbreviation of ‘application’) as a piece of software designed for video games, including for use on, but not limited to use on, a mobile phone or computer.

We define ‘intellectual property’ as something that you create using your mind. Intellectual property can belong to individuals or companies.

1.2 Research questions

General

We are interested in finding out about how and why people engage with video games, including their different motivations and applications for game play and game utilisation. We are interested in finding out about ways to approach research in future.

Interaction with, and impacts of, video games

How and why do people interact with video games, including considering motivations for interacting with video games, and how does this vary across different player demographics.

How and why do parents, guardians and carers interact with video games, including considering motivations for interacting with video games, and how do parents, guardians and carers interact with children and young people with regards to video games.

Whether, and if so how and to what extent, different types and genres of games have positive and negative impacts for players.

What positive, negative and little to no impacts on players, groups of players, organisations, institutions and societies are associated with video games. You may wish to consider which taxonomies should be used to categorise these impacts.

Research practices into the study of video games

What taxonomy or taxonomies should be used for the study of video games and associated products and services.

What are best practices in research in the study of video games, the video games sector, and how people interact with video games.

How can researchers best advance understanding and development of effective play management and safety techniques and tools, including corporate, parent, guardian or carer, and player self-management.

What are the most effective working models and good practices for data sharing for research into the impacts of video games. You may wish to consider industry to academia, and players to academia data sharing. You may wish to consider new and emerging technologies associated with video games.

What are the new and emerging techniques and methodologies to capture, study and understand gameplay, including new analytical techniques for understanding data associated with video games. You may wish to consider how these techniques and methodologies shape current best practices in research into the impacts of video games. You may wish to consider new and emerging technologies associated with video games.

Economics and skills

We are interested in the economic impacts of video games, the video games sector, and the wider digital and creative economy. This includes benefits and the impacts of interventions designed to increase or support economic benefits. We are interested in how games can support the development of skills, and the future skills provision needed to support the growth of the video games sector and the wider creative and digital economy, where there may be spillover effects and opportunities.

Economic benefits and interventions

What are the economic benefits of video games, and the video games sector, in the UK. You may want to consider the challenges and opportunities for increasing these economic benefits, including the impact of interventions designed to increase or support economic benefits.

What are the legal, economic and social relationships between games platforms and companies, and people who interact with those platforms and companies. How do these relationships support economic benefits, and where and how are they a barrier to realising economic benefits.

What market failures exist in the industry, and to what extent are these barriers to realising economic benefits. What interventions are, and/or would be, most effective in addressing these market failures.

What and how do spillovers from technologies used in games development and design and publication impact other creative and cultural industries, and other businesses.

Skills impacts and future skills provision

How can skills learnt and developed by players from video games support the growth of the video games sector, and creative industries more widely, in the UK.

Whether, and if so how and to what extent, video games support the development of particular skills. You may wish to consider how these skills could be applicable for new and emerging, and traditional jobs markets and education sectors.

Whether, and if so how and to what extent, can video games be applied to training or retraining, and what are the positive and negative impacts of this.

What skills are needed to support the workforce in the video games sector, and how will these skills change over time. You may wish to consider this in relation to games culture, and working cultures within the video games sector.

What interventions are, and would be, most effective to develop the future skills requirements in the video games sector’s workforce. You may wish to consider what existing pathways into the industry are being utilised, and how they could be improved.

Education and learning

We are interested in how video games have shaped how different individuals and groups learn, where games may have influenced and shaped education, and any positive, negative or any or no impacts on learning.

Games as supportive tools for learning

How can games be designed for use as education tools and tools supporting learning. You could consider how games can be used for teaching and learning, and their value in supporting learning.

Whether, and if so how and to what extent, behaviour or engagement with different social, political or economic issues can be fostered or promoted through game play.

Games’ impacts on learning and development

Whether there are direct and indirect impacts of video games on cognitive development and, if so, what they are.

Whether, and if so to what extent, there are direct and indirect impacts of learning through video games across different groups.

To what extent does time spent playing video games interact with other uses of time (e.g. extracurricular activities, homework etc).

Game design, in-game features and monetisation strategies

We would like to understand more about different in-game features, including:

1. The development of, application of, and motivations for various game and in-game design features, including spending and monetisation features.

2. Why and how monetisation strategies and techniques are designed and developed, and if they have positive, negative or any or no impact on players.

3. In-game and in-app advertising. We do not draw distinction on the purposes for which these applications are developed or used by players.

Game and associated digital technologies design

What typologies should be used to distinguish between different types of features and mechanisms in game design and associated digital technologies, and within in-game design.

Whether, and if so how, do different designs (such as design architectures and design environments) in video games impact players, and groups of players’ experiences.

Whether, and if so how and to what extent, design mechanics are used in video games and associated digital technologies to extend player engagement.

How and to what extent can video game design be used to model positive relationships, perceptions and behaviours.

Monetisation strategies and in-game spending

Whether, and if so how, different games’ designs for different monetisation features can impact players and groups of players’ experiences.

Whether different types of in-game features, mechanisms and monetisation strategies are associated with positive, negative or no impacts for people and groups.

How and why do people spend money and assets on, and within, video games and associated technologies and experiences.

Do spending behaviours differ between different types of assets and experiences such as between cosmetic and functional assets (that impact gameplay).

What mechanisms are in place for managing and restricting in-game spending, and are these mechanisms effective in mitigating the risk of problematic spending behaviours.

In-game and in-app advertising

Whether, and if so how and to what extent, do in-game and in-app advertising influence or create different impacts upon players and groups of players.

Whether, and if so how, in-game advertising features are developed to ensure protection against harms, for players and groups of players, and how effective are these features.

Online safety

We would like to learn more about how online safety is applied in video games, and the impact and effectiveness of protections for players, and parents, guardians and carers for those who play video games.

Harmful content, behaviours and experiences

Whether, and to what extent, players and groups of players are exposed to harmful content and harmful experiences in video games, and what are the associated impacts.

To what extent can bullying, discriminatory and harassing behaviours be considered “prevalent” in video games. You could consider the below examples:

• whether, and if so how, do these behaviours correlate with experiences of victimisation/perpetration of real-world bullying, discrimination and harassment

• whether, and if so how, players or groups of players from different demographic groups are affected by harms in games

To what extent can toxic behaviours, including radicalisation, be considered present in video games, and what impact does this hold on players and groups of players.

To what extent do players and groups of players set their own trajectory towards and away from risk exposure and/or inappropriate content within games environments, and to what extent is this determined by choice and design architecture.

Online safety and protections

Whether, and if so how and to what extent, do current protections (including tools, information, policies, and approaches to game design) adequately protect players and groups of players from harmful content and harmful experiences in video games.

Whether, and to what extent, information about video games support players in how they engage with games, support positive behaviours, and mitigate the risk of negative impacts including harm.

What are the impacts of consumer protection and data protection legislation on games design and promotion.

Social, behavioural and health (physical and mental) impacts

We are interested in understanding outcomes from interaction with video games on players and groups of players, communities, industries and societies, and what causes these outcomes. This includes a better understanding of any positive, negative or any or no impacts from video games, and the various levels of significance or influence on different individuals and different groups that impacts from video games hold.

Social and behavioural impacts

Which factors determine whether playing video games has positive, negative or any or no impacts on players or groups of players. You could consider factors including the impacts of different approaches to game design or the impacts of game play behaviour of players and groups of players across demographics.

Whether, and if so how, players or groups of players’ behaviour is self-managed and self-regulated in digital environments, including effective practices, motivations and self-management for game-play, and if this changes depending on environments.

Whether, and if so how, why and to what extent, can games designed and/or published in particular environments or online platforms influence or increase the likelihood of certain behaviours in players or groups of players. You could consider whether, and if so to what extent, differences in game types and games devices can impact and create different behaviours.

Health impacts

Whether, and if so how and to what extent, there are impacts on physical health, and/or mental health, on players and groups of players interacting with video games.

To what extent does the application, and uses of, video games as health tools, impact upon players or groups of players (including on game play behaviour), and games design (both directly and indirectly).

Emerging technology and innovation

We would like to understand more about how emerging technologies and innovations can influence and shape player experience, the games industry, and other sectors.

Emerging technologies and innovation

Whether, and if so how, new and emerging technologies in video games shape player experiences, and does this produce different types of positive, negative or any or no impacts.

Whether, and if so how, the implementation of immersive technologies transfer into long-term behavioural effects, socio-economic issues, and real-world learning.

Whether, and if so how, emerging technology and innovation research and development in the games industry can develop and grow digital and creative economies.

Impacts of emerging technology and innovation on industries

Whether, and if so how and why, video games have direct and indirect impacts on both new and emerging businesses and wider sectors, and on traditional business models and other economic sectors.

Whether, and if so what, impacts do emerging technology and innovation have on the scale and development of productivity, and behavioural policy and practices, in the video games industry.

Intellectual property and regulation

We are interested in the impacts of regulatory requirements on video games and the video games sector, how regulations have evolved in response to changes in the video games industry, and implications for intellectual property (IP).

Whether, and if so how, video game design, development, and user creativity within and outside of video games, and the wider video games industry as a whole, has been impacted by IP and by regulation.

Whether, and if so what, direct and indirect impacts has the Age Appropriate Design Code had on UK and international games development, games publication, games advertisement, and distribution of games.

How, what and why are approaches to collection practices on personal data by games and platforms developed by designers, and how has the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018 legislation impacted this data collection.

Whether, and if so how, video games have impacted intellectual property (IP) ownership, for children and young people, and for adults both inside and outside the video games industry. You could consider types of IP, how IP is managed and protected, and how IP ownership is transferred and managed.

1.3 Shared priorities with Research Councils

Many of the topics and questions set out above are aligned with the priorities of Research Councils. We encourage researchers to consider opportunities for conducting research which is aligned with Research Council priorities. Interdisciplinary research priorities across Research Councils are included in each of the sections below.

Guidance for applying for funding, areas of investment and support, and live and new funding opportunities for all Research Councils can be found in UKRI’s Apply for funding. Individuals, businesses and organisations can assess their eligibility for UKRI funding in UKRI’s Check if you are eligible for research and innovation funding.

Researchers may wish to review UKRI’s and each Research Council’s strategic delivery plans, which detail the activities that Councils will undertake against UKRI’s 6 strategic objectives.

Researchers are also recommended to review UKRI’s guidance for Meeting terms and conditions for funding. Please note that the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Medical Research Council (MRC) have additional council-specific terms and conditions.

Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)

Priority research areas:

Artificial intelligence project - supporting the UK’s capability and capacity in artificial intelligence (AI) by building a thriving and inclusive working environment and supporting the development of future AI technologies.

CoSTAR National R&D and Network Labs - funding to host national research and development (R&D) facilities to drive innovation and creativity in the UK’s screen and performance industries.

Design research - wide-ranging research projects on design and its impacts and contributions to the UK economy.

Funding opportunities:

Creating Opportunities Evaluation Development Fund - undertake evaluation activities that improve understanding of interventions that increase opportunities and reduce disparities in economic, health and social outcomes for people and places across the UK. This opportunity is partnered with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Innovate UK and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Creating Opportunities Trial Accelerator Fund - test and rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of interventions aimed at spreading opportunities and reducing disparities in economic, health and social outcomes for people and places across the UK. This opportunity is partnered with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Innovate UK and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Health and wellbeing research - mental health - the Research Councils have a collective interest in mental health research. Projects have come from areas as diverse as the creative arts, design, law, ethics and history, as well as a range of interdisciplinary approaches, and originated as a variety of standard funding opportunities and targeted funding opportunities. This opportunity is partnered with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Health and wellbeing research portfolio - the development of medicine and healthcare practices to help learn future lessons. This uses the cultural context of healthcare and behaviour to learn about culturally appropriate interventions, and explores diverse approaches to improving quality of life beyond medicine. This opportunity is partnered with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Heritage research - to support AHRC’s strategy for the continued development of heritage research as a vibrant, innovative, highly collaborative and cross-disciplinary research field.

Joint programming initiatives on Cultural Heritage (JPI CH) - promotes safeguarding cultural heritage, including tangible, intangible and digital assets. This opportunity is partnered with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Population health improvement network of clusters - lead a population health improvement research cluster as a group of interdisciplinary researchers working together to address an important population health challenge. This will form an interdisciplinary network, which will generate research to improve the health of communities across the UK, reduce health inequalities, and develop and evaluate effective, long-lasting and environmentally sustainable interventions. This opportunity is partnered with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

UKRI impact acceleration accounts - strategic awards for research organisations to respond to impact opportunities in more flexible, responsive and creative ways.

Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

Priority research areas:

Digital Footprints - programme to coordinate, convene, develop and support thriving interdisciplinary Digital Footprints Data (DFD) communities focused on addressing pressing national and international challenges. This will inform and be informed by the Future Data Services Programme.

Digital Good Network - ensuring Digital Technologies work for society.

Economy - research projects seeking to understand how people interact to produce and exchange goods and services, and the collective impact of those interactions. This includes why new innovations and technologies develop in some places and not others, and what trade-offs are needed to address environmental issues.

Future Data Services - programme to decide how best to invest in the next generation of data services beyond 2024.

Understanding behaviour - research projects to enhance capacity and capability to tackle major societal challenges.

Funding opportunities:

Creating Opportunities Evaluation Development Fund - undertake evaluation activities that improve understanding of interventions that increase opportunities and reduce disparities in economic, health and social outcomes for people and places across the UK. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Innovate UK and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Creating Opportunities Trial Accelerator Fund - test and rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of interventions aimed at spreading opportunities and reducing disparities in economic, health and social outcomes for people and places across the UK. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Innovate UK and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Developing methodological capability in the social sciences - respond to research challenges in a changing, interdisciplinary research and funding environment, including developing new methods and building capability across the social science research community.

Health and wellbeing research – mental health - the Research Councils have a collective interest in mental health research. Projects have come from areas as diverse as the creative arts, design, law, ethics and history, as well as a range of interdisciplinary approaches, and originated as a variety of standard funding opportunities and targeted funding opportunities. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Health and wellbeing research portfolio - the development of medicine and healthcare practices to help us learn future lessons. This uses the cultural context of healthcare and behaviour to learn about culturally appropriate interventions, and explores diverse approaches to improving quality of life beyond medicine. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Improving health, wellbeing and social care - research into the creation of new insights from research and data collections into health and care services as well as research into the wider factors affecting physical and mental health including income, housing, social deprivation, and behaviours.

Improving public services - research that gives insights and evidence that inform and shape the development and delivery of equitable and efficient public services, including new innovations and approaches across the UK.

Joint programming initiatives on Cultural Heritage (JPI CH) - promotes safeguarding cultural heritage, including tangible, intangible and digital assets. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Population health improvement network of clusters - lead a population health improvement research cluster as a group of interdisciplinary researchers working together to address an important population health challenge. This will form an interdisciplinary network, which will generate research to improve the health of communities across the UK, reduce health inequalities, and develop and evaluate effective, long-lasting and environmentally sustainable interventions. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Population and society - creation of new insights from research and data into understanding the makeup of the nation and its needs across areas including health and care, poverty, disability, housing, wellbeing, education and policing to inform national local and global policies that improve life for all.

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)

Priority research areas:

Artificial intelligence technologies - research focused on fundamental advances in AI technologies, while applications of such technologies are captured within other subject domains.

Databases - ongoing problems of data science, to identify new ways of developing scalable data management systems that can manage high volumes of complex data in infrastructures on which data analytics can then be performed.

Digital signal processing - includes theory and techniques concerned with detection, estimation, coding, transmission, enhancement, analysis, representation, recording, reconstruction, transformation and interpretation of signals, data and information.

Information and communication technologies - supporting UK scientists to deliver the very best research and training to meet the future scientific needs across the science base.

Funding opportunities:

Creating Opportunities Evaluation Development Fund - undertake evaluation activities that improve understanding of interventions that increase opportunities and reduce disparities in economic, health and social outcomes for people and places across the UK. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Innovate UK and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Creating Opportunities Trial Accelerator Fund - test and rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of interventions aimed at spreading opportunities and reducing disparities in economic, health and social outcomes for people and places across the UK. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Innovate UK and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

EPSRC discipline hopping in ICT: responsive mode - opportunity for ICT researchers to use their expertise in other disciplines, or for researchers from other fields to apply their expertise to ICT. Includes showing how this research will use interdisciplinary research and collaborative development to benefit the ICT research community.

EPSRC impact acceleration accounts - Impact acceleration accounts (IAAs) are strategic awards, to add value to existing funding and take advantage of new or unforeseen opportunities.

EPSRC standard mode research grant: responsive mode - research grants to provide continued support of excellent discovery-led research in the Council’s remit. This includes projects that are high-risk or high-return research embracing new concepts or techniques, feasibility studies, instrument development, project-specific equipment, collaborative projects that cross different disciplines.

Graphics and visualisation - includes rendering, augmented reality, virtual reality, animation and immersive technologies, as well as visual computer languages and novel ways of visualising complex data that will enable understanding and exploring of, and extraction of value from, information.

Health and wellbeing research – mental health - the Research Councils have a collective interest in mental health research. Projects have come from areas as diverse as the creative arts, design, law, ethics and history, as well as a range of interdisciplinary approaches, and originated as a variety of standard funding opportunities and targeted funding opportunities. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Healthcare technologies theme - supports research which aims to accelerate translation to healthcare applications.

Image and vision computing - support research areas focused on the theory and fundamental underpinning of Image and Vision Computing in both two dimensions (2D) and three dimensions (3D), across the electromagnetic spectrum. This recognises image and vision computing’s importance to data science and its underpinning of research across sectors such as robotics, security, defence, healthcare, communications, creative industries, media and manufacturing.

Joint programming initiatives on Cultural Heritage (JPI CH) - promotes safeguarding cultural heritage, including tangible, intangible and digital assets. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Music and acoustic technology - multidisciplinary research area including development of algorithms, signal processing techniques, user interfaces and information systems to support music or sound-based interactions between humans and computers and between performers and audiences mediated by technology.

Natural language processing - the exploration of computational techniques to learn, understand and produce human language content.

Population health improvement network of clusters - lead a population health improvement research cluster as a group of interdisciplinary researchers working together to address an important population health challenge. This will form an interdisciplinary network which will generate research to improve the health of communities across the UK, reduce health inequalities, and develop and evaluate effective, long-lasting and environmentally sustainable interventions. This opportunity partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Research and partnerships hubs for health technologies - drawing on expertise across the engineering, physical sciences and health research community to build and develop strategic research capabilities of importance to one or more of the following health challenges, as identified by the EPSRC health technologies strategy:

• improving population health and prevention

• transforming prediction and early diagnosis

• discovering and accelerating the development of new interventions

Software engineering - research into the design, implementation and maintenance of software, enabling development of software that is dependable, efficient and maintainable.

Speech technology - recognition, understanding and synthesis of human speech, using a range of techniques and focusing on how systems recognise and generate the sounds of language.

Verification and correctness - demonstrate the correctness of systems and contribute to software and hardware co-design.

Vision, hearing and other senses - studies of the biology and psychology of human vision, hearing and other senses (especially touch), to underpin design and implementation of human-computer interfaces.

Innovate UK

Funding opportunities

Creating Opportunities Evaluation Development Fund - undertake evaluation activities that improve understanding of interventions that increase opportunities and reduce disparities in economic, health and social outcomes for people and places across the UK. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Creating Opportunities Trial Accelerator Fund - test and rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of interventions aimed at spreading opportunities and reducing disparities in economic, health and social outcomes for people and places across the UK. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and the Medical Research Council (MRC)

Medical Research Council

Priority research areas:

Adolescence, mental health and developing mind - how mental health problems emerge in young people, what makes some more susceptible or resilient than others, and how we can intervene early to promote positive mental health and wellbeing.

Better methods, better research - research that develops and delivers ways to improve the research methods being used by others. This opportunity is partnered with the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

Developmental pathway funding scheme - driving fundamental discoveries along the developmental pathway towards patient benefit and/or commercialisation. Applications can focus on the development of any innovative solution that aims to improve the prevention, diagnosis, prognosis or treatment of significant health needs.

Mental health research - specific to MRC’s strategy for lifelong mental health research, this sets out how the MRC will ensure the UK is at the forefront of new discovery science in mental health.

Neurosciences and mental health - managed by the Neurosciences and Mental Health Board (NMHB) to support research into disorders of the human nervous system, addressing challenges such as mental illness, and exploring the study of brain tissue.

Funding opportunities:

Creating Opportunities Evaluation Development Fund - undertake evaluation activities that improve understanding of interventions that increase opportunities and reduce disparities in economic, health and social outcomes for people and places across the UK. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and Innovate UK.

Creating Opportunities Trial Accelerator Fund - test and rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of interventions aimed at spreading opportunities and reducing disparities in economic, health and social outcomes for people and places across the UK. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and Innovate UK.

Experimental medicine - support and fund experimental medical research in humans that will significantly increase the speed and efficiency by which medical discoveries are translated into healthcare.

Health and wellbeing research – mental health - the Research Councils have a collective interest in mental health research. Projects have come from areas as diverse as the creative arts, design, law, ethics and history, as well as a range of interdisciplinary approaches, and originated as a variety of standard funding opportunities and targeted funding opportunities. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Health and wellbeing research portfolio - the development of medicine and healthcare practices to help us learn future lessons. This uses the cultural context of healthcare and behaviour to learn about culturally appropriate interventions, and explores diverse approaches to improving quality of life beyond medicine. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

MRC impact acceleration accounts - strategic awards providing funding to research organisations to use creatively for a wide range of impact activities.

Population health improvement network of clusters - lead a population health improvement research cluster as a group of interdisciplinary researchers working together to address an important population health challenge. This will form an interdisciplinary network, which will generate research to improve the health of communities across the UK, reduce health inequalities, and develop and evaluate effective, long-lasting and environmentally sustainable interventions. This opportunity is partnered with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR)

Funding opportunities

Better methods, better research - for research that develops and delivers ways to improve the research methods being used by others. This opportunity is partnered with the Medical Research Council.

Researchers are welcome to apply for funding from the NIHR. It is recommended you contact the NIHR for guidance on this application process.

Research England

Funding opportunities:

Connecting Capability Fund (CCF) project - strengthen the contribution of English higher education institutions (HEIs) to productivity and economic growth and to delivery of the objectives of the Government’s Industrial Strategy.

Research England development fund - supports institutional-level innovative projects in research and knowledge exchange including collaborations between education providers and between education providers and business.

Chapter 2: Research standards and methodologies

This chapter sets out recommended research standards and methodological approaches to deliver high quality research that all researchers, from all disciplines, should meet to ensure their research is delivered in the public interest. We are focused on enabling a wide range of research standards and methodologies, including interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches.

2.1 Ethical research in video games

Video games are a crucial part of people’s lives and research into video games will naturally engage with people who play and interact with games in a variety of ways. In addition, the topic of research may address a range of sensitive issues and could involve engagement with potentially vulnerable people and communities. Consequently, it is imperative that research into video games should be undertaken in a manner that demonstrates the highest levels of research integrity and ethics and that this is consistent with existing research integrity and ethics frameworks and guidelines. This section provides an overview of the current frameworks that researchers should be familiar with and follow when engaging with the Video Games Research Framework. It is recommended that researchers read this section in tandem with Chapter 3.1 Data ethics, consent on data sharing and data collection.

Research integrity

Researchers undertaking work in video games should be aware of and act in a manner consistent with the UKRI’s research integrity policy. This policy applies to Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and Medical Research Council (MRC) funded research.

The research integrity policy covers the promotion of good research conduct, including:

• good conduct in peer review

• the need for appropriate training and development

• what constitutes unacceptable research conduct

• the investigation and reporting of unacceptable research conduct

This policy is part of the terms and conditions for Research Council training and full economic costing grants.

Researchers, and all parties participating in research delivered in line with this Framework, should follow the Concordat to support research integrity, to protect good research conduct and governance.

Ethical standards

As part of research integrity, all researchers must follow ethical research practices, including managing conflicts of interests.

For researchers following specific Research Council requirements, they should meet the following ethical standards for their research funder. These include the Economic and Social Research Council Research ethics guidance and the Medical Research Council Ethics and Approvals guidance. Researchers engaging with people as part of their research process should seek to be consistent with this guidance irrespective of their source of funding.

Researchers should follow UKRI’s human participants in research guidance when working with people. Any researchers who will be performing research with children and young people should follow UKRI’s research with children and young people principles and refer to specific guidance from relevant Research Councils as appropriate. Additional UKRI policies and guidance, including consent, safeguarding, and ethics of involving children in research, can be found on the UKRI’s principles page.

Managing conflicts of interest

To manage conflicts of interests, all researchers should follow the Research Council guidance for applicants on declaring interests.

Researchers should consider and declare potential conflicts of interest in developing their research to ensure that it is within the public interest. Independence of research is founded on academic credentials, professional standards, expertise and experience. It should be free from personal, organisational and political bias, dishonesty, and considerations of gain.

Researchers and industry participants should also consider non-financial conflicts of interest: situations in which research outputs are potentially jeopardised by personal, professional, ideological, or intellectual interests. Researchers should maintain the independence of their research and where conflicts of interest cannot be avoided they should be made explicit.

Video games industry participants should consider how data sharing aligns with corporate interests. Whilst any collaborative relationship with industry and external partners remains beneficial to researchers, there is risk that the interests of these partners transfer to the research team themselves, creating a conflict.

Researchers should consider maintaining an open and transparent approach to describing the involvement of external partners, including from the games industry, in shaping any idea or research processes. This should include:

• disclosing detailed information about the questions that researchers generated

• detailing how those research questions were reflexive to perceived capabilities and priorities of industry partners; and

• detailing discussions of any adjacent research projects that were either proposed to industry bodies or considered for proposal

Researchers should consider including details regarding:

• both the industry partner(s) whose support was ultimately gained for any conducted research; and

• any other relevant research projects that were proposed and/or considered with other industry partner(s)

Responsible innovation

In addition to embedding strong ethical principles in their research process, it is recommended that researchers follow UKRI’s principles for responsible innovation in the design of the research programme.

Responsible innovation is a process that takes the wider impacts of research and innovation into account. It aims to ensure that unintended negative impacts are avoided, that barriers to dissemination, adoption and diffusion of research and innovation are reduced, and that the positive societal and economic benefits of research and innovation are fully realised.

It is recommended that researchers and organisations follow these principles, and continually reflect throughout the project on the potential societal implications of the research and innovation.

Researchers following EPSRC requirements are recommended to demonstrate awareness of, and commitment to, the principles of responsible innovation, following the Anticipate, reflect, engage, act (AREA) approach.

Open research policies

All researchers and industry representatives are recommended to abide by the Knowledge Exchange Concordat. By doing so, this can build upon academic institutions’ development of Knowledge Exchange practices, improve collaboration between academic institutions and the video games industry and advance the impact of research.

The Framework aims to enable researchers to apply a combination of data with standard forms of research, to produce high quality research outputs.

To support open research principles in your research, you may consider using an Open Research Action Plan.

You also may consider the UK Reproducibility Network’s Open Research across Disciplines guidance on how open research principles can be applied across different research disciplines.

Data accessibility

When publishing their research findings, researchers should consider how to support sustainability of research flows.

Researchers could consider computational reproducibility in data sets for ensuring data can be accessed over a long period of time, including ensuring that all research assets (such as datasets, software/hardware, statistical code, and materials) can all be used in the long term.

Openness is a principle that cannot always be fully realised, and there may be good reasons to limit openness in some circumstances. For example, this may be in relation to not being able to fully create an anonymised, or pseudonymised, data set. This may be in relation to data not being able to be stripped of personal information. To the greatest extent permitted by security, IP, privacy and ethical concerns, all data sharing should adhere to FAIR data principles: data should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.

Where data or materials are not openly accessible, researchers should consider making a clear/specific statement outlining the reasons (e.g. legal, ethical constraints or severe impracticality) as to why this is the case. Further guidance can be found on the Peer Reviewers’ Openness Initiative Exception to open practices.

2.2 Methods for video games research

The Framework is intended to protect the independence of research, evidence and data and encourage the clear articulation and rigorous application of the research methods used to undertake research. The Framework follows UKRI’s open research principles, which set out how research is performed and how knowledge is shared based on the principle that research should be as open as possible.

The breadth and variety of research questions surrounding video games will require a diverse set of research methods and approaches. This will include quantitative and qualitative approaches, lab-based research, interview-based studies, fieldwork in naturalistic settings, prototype deployments and various data analysis approaches. These approaches may also include:

• idiographic research, including ethnographies (and digital ethnographies)

• secondary analysis of game server data

• surveys

• textual analysis

• behavioural analysis - experiments

• content analyses

• simulation

• other model-based approaches, including causal modelling

Many of the investigations will be interdisciplinary in nature and draw upon methods from different research traditions. Researchers may adopt longitudinal or cross-sectional approaches depending on the particular problem being addressed. In some investigations, researchers will apply mixed methods approaches to illuminate different aspects surrounding research questions.

Given the diversity of methods and approaches it is recommended that researchers apply a number of specific principles in reporting their findings:

• a clear description of the research method(s) to be applied and rationale for the approach

• provision of evidence of the rigorous application of the method to convey confidence in the results; and

• a clear statement of the bounds and limits of any claims made given the particular methods used

Aligning to the Framework’s principles of Inclusivity, Openness and Transparency, open research principles should be applied throughout the research lifecycle to support collaboration within and across disciplines, as well as improve public value, research integrity, re-use and innovation.

Researchers should apply open research principles to build trust and transparency in any subsequent results and evidence. This should include the pre-registration of study designs and use of results-blind reporting mechanisms to increase transparency and counter publication bias as well as the preservation and sharing of data, code and materials supporting research results when possible. This can help decrease false discovery rates and prevent biases such as selective reporting of outcomes or statistical analysis. Further considerations can be found from the UK Reproducibility Network and Centre for Open Science.

Researchers should also focus on the need to develop a robust and extensive body of evidence and should work towards the creation of a body of results that convey where possible a broad consensus around the key research questions. This may require the use of meta-analysis techniques that systematically draw upon multiple independent studies to identify common effects and results. However, meta-analyses should consider potential publication biases in literature being analysed, and researchers should reflect on this accordingly.

Chapter 3: Data ethics, data privacy and data sharing

Data sharing has been identified as a barrier in games research (and in other areas of research). This chapter aims to facilitate better data sharing between researchers, the video games industry (including third-party data providers) and people who interact with games. This includes:

1. Requirements for ethical use of data by researchers, the video game industry and third-party data providers, and the government, including information on consent for data sharing and ethical data collection.

2. Methods for protecting research data privacy for participants in research, including safeguarding considerations.

3. Setting standards for data sharing, and protecting research assets, including research data, long-term.

4. Guidance for players to share their data with researchers, and how the video games industry can share data with academia, including players’ personal data, securely and responsibly.

All users of this Framework are encouraged to go beyond the legal requirements for data ethics and ethical data sharing where possible.

It is recommended researchers consider using the UK Reproducibility Networks’ Data Sharing Primer document, to support development of data protection and data ethics in research. Researchers may also wish to consider other UK Reproducibility Network Primers in developing their research.

3.1 Data ethics, consent on data sharing and data collection

This section sets ethical data practices and data permission sharing standards to protect personal data for participants in research. This includes:

1. Data ethics legislation, and ethical data use in research;

2. Information on consent on sharing data for participation in research;

3. Data collection practices in line with data management plans.

Data ethics

All qualitative and quantitative data used for research should be treated with high ethical standards. If you are using personal data, you must comply with the principles of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018). Additional information on when these principles apply can be found in the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) What is personal data? guidance.

Public sector organisations should use the Framework in consideration of the Government Data Ethics Framework.

All organisations have a responsibility to keep both personal data and non-personal data secure.

Ethical data use for research

All users of the Framework must follow the below ethical and legal standards for data privacy and data protection when developing and managing their research.

The UK GDPR and the DPA 2018 contain provisions for processing personal data for research purposes. These provisions refer to 3 types of research-related purposes for processing personal data, which are:

• archiving purposes in the public interest

• scientific or historical research purposes; and

• statistical purposes

The ICO’s guidance on research provisions, including research-related processing, provides additional detailed information for those with specific data protection responsibilities in organisations undertaking research, archiving or processing for statistical purposes. It is recommended that all researchers undertake a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) before starting any research. It is good practice to do a DPIA for any major project which requires the processing of personal data. However, researchers must do a DPIA for processing that is likely to result in a high risk to individuals. This includes some specified types of processing. Researchers can use ICO’s screening checklists to help decide when to do a DPIA.

You should also consider how research-related processing is in the public interest. The public interest covers a wide range of values and principles about the public good, or what is in society’s best interests. In making the case that your research is in the public interest, it is not enough to point to your own private interests. Researchers can still have a private interest but you also need to make sure you can point to a wider public benefit.

Some examples of the form this public benefit could take are:

• improved health and wellbeing outcomes

• improved financial or economic outcomes for individuals or the collective public

• the advancement of academic knowledge in a given field

• the preservation of art, culture and knowledge for the enrichment of society both now and in the future; or

• the provision of more efficient or more effective products and services for the public

The following ethical and legal standards for data privacy and data protection apply to all research:

1. Organisations must follow the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

2. Researchers are recommended to follow the UKRI’s GDPR and research - an overview for researchers for additional guidance.

3. Consider informed consent for players participating in research. Consent is an important ethical standard that ensures and protects the autonomy and privacy of participants in research studies. Further guidance can be found on the UK Data Service.

4. Industry stakeholders should familiarise themselves with exemptions within GDPR relating to (non-commercial) scientific and historical research, and how these exemptions facilitate effective data sharing with independent researchers.

For players

The Framework aims to advance and set ethical and legal standards for players’ choice and right to share their data in an interoperable format that protects data privacy. These requirements for ethical and legal standards are designed to give players more control over what personal information all researchers use and the games industry can apply.

Principles and grounds for processing personal data - considerations for research

Two of the 7 principles and grounds for processing under the UK GDPR – purpose limitation and storage limitation – contain special provisions for research-related processing.

The purpose limitation principle says you can reuse existing personal data for research-related purposes, as long as it is compatible with the original purpose. This applies as long as the intended further processing:

• meets the criteria for one of the research-related purposes

• is necessary for one of the research-related purposes

• is fair and lawful; and

• has appropriate safeguards in place

If you meet these conditions, then the research purposes are compatible with their original purpose. You would then not need to undertake a specific compatibility test.

However, your original basis to collect the data may not always be appropriate for your research-related processing.

In most cases, your lawful basis for your research-related processing is either one of the below requirements (5 and 6) in Article 6 (1) of the UK GDPR:

1. Public task – the processing is necessary for you to perform a task in the public interest or for your official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law; or

2. Legitimate interests – the processing is necessary for your legitimate interests, or the interests of a third party, unless there is a good reason to protect the person’s personal data which overrides those legitimate interests.

Permissions and consent on sharing data

The rights and agency of players to share data is central to data sharing practices. Informed consent is an ethical requirement, and is in some cases a legal requirement, for research conducted with people, and should be considered and implemented throughout the research lifecycle, from planning to publication to sharing of data as part of the research project.

Participants need to participate voluntarily in research, and understand what the research will involve, what data will be collected and how this data will be used, especially if the data and research may reveal identities and information on people who are involved. Informed consent is an explicit requirement for any interventional procedures, such as medical research.

At the outset of a study, when providing informed consent on sharing data, participants should be provided with information on how to subsequently withdraw their consent, if they choose to do so. Researchers should consider withdrawal of consent in advance and provide information about this in the information sheet and consent form. However, if an individual’s data is completely anonymised as part of the study, it may not always be possible to withdraw data after the study has been completed.

It is important that researchers and industry participants respond to the needs of the individuals whose data they utilise. An individual’s involvement in data sharing should not focus only on the decision to share or not share data at the point that research is conducted. Instead, player involvement should occur throughout the research process. Where required in some research projects, experts in the research topic area should be drawn from relevant communities and involved through the entire research design lifecycle. Researchers should clearly demonstrate how the data to be used as part of open research in their research project is reflective of the interests of the participants whose data is donated.

Further guidance on this can be found on the UK Data Service.

Data collection practices

Data collection practices must implicitly de-identify all research participants.

Researchers are recommended to use a data management plan in submitting their research proposals. Researchers may wish to use the UKRI data management plan template, and refer to additional guidance in the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) Data Management Plan guidance. Researchers may also consider the UK Data Service plan to share guidance.

Within any data plan for research using the Framework, researchers should include:

1. Description of the data;

2. Data collection/generation;

3. Data management, documentation and curation;

4. Data security and confidentiality of potentially disclosive information;

5. Data sharing and access, including making data available for reuse;

6. Responsibilities of each researcher/each member of the research team in managing data for the research project;

7. Relevant institutional, departmental or study policies on data sharing and data security.

Researchers following Medical Research Council (MRC) requirements should also follow the MRC Using data about people in research guidance and MRC’s Policy and Guidance on Sharing of Research Data from Population and Patient Studies.

Researchers using games analytics data and other data shared by industry participants should also consider specific issues regarding measurement. For example, an individual’s location, total playtime, or session count could be calculated via algorithm, which may be provided to industry partners by a third party.

Whenever possible, researchers should attempt to document the algorithms that define the variables they measure. When this is not possible, researchers should attempt to be as open as possible regarding both any partial knowledge of how variables were generated; and the specific nature of barriers to the reporting of underpinning algorithms.

3.2 Data privacy

This section focuses on methods for protecting research data privacy for participants in research, including safeguarding considerations.

Data safeguarding

Use of personal research data in the research provisions is dependent on you having appropriate safeguards in place. These protect the rights and freedoms of the people whose personal data you are processing. You can find further information in the ICO’s guidance on What are the appropriate safeguards?.

These safeguards take the form of technical and organisational measures. Article 89 of the UK GDPR regulations specifically mentions measures to ensure respect for the principle of data minimisation. This may involve, where possible, anonymised or pseudonymised data.

Section 19 of the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 adds to these safeguards by stating that research-related processing does not satisfy Article 89 if the processing will lead to one of the below scenarios:

• If the processing is carried out for the purposes of measures or decisions with respect to particular people, unless the research is approved medical research. This means you cannot rely on the research provisions if you are intending to use that data and the results of your research, to make specific decisions about the people involved, or to inform the services you provide to them

• If the processing is likely to cause someone substantial damage or substantial distress. In most cases, substantial damage would include both material and non-material harms, such as:

  • financial loss;

  • economic or social disadvantage;

  • physical harm;

  • damage to reputation;

  • loss of confidentiality; or

  • deprivation of rights

Safeguarding children’s personal data

Researchers should ensure particular protection when collecting and processing children’s personal data. Any researchers who will be undertaking research with children and young people should follow UKRI’s research with children and young people’s principles and refer to specific guidance from relevant Research Councils as appropriate.

Additional UKRI policies and guidance, including consent, safeguarding, and ethics of involving children in research can be found on this UKRI’s principles page. Researchers are recommended to also review ICO’s guidance on children’s personal data and processing.

Data anonymisation and pseudonymised data

Researchers should consider if they are choosing to use data anonymisation, or pseudonymised data within their research, and if this impacts on GDPR requirements for any personal data. The UK Data Service information on research data management, and the ICO’s Introduction to anonymisation provides further guidance on these processes.

Anonymisation allows data to be shared, whilst preserving privacy; personal data that has been anonymised is not subject to the UK GDPR. You can consider data to be effectively anonymised when it:

• does not relate to an identified or identifiable individual; or

• is rendered anonymous in such a way that individuals are not (or are no longer) identifiable

It is easier to share anonymous information rather than personal data as fewer legal restrictions apply. It is also easier to use anonymous information in new and different ways, as the data protection rules on purpose limitation do not apply.

Anonymising research data is best planned early in the research process, to help reduce anonymisation costs. It should be considered alongside obtaining informed consent for data sharing or imposing access restrictions. You must also consider the effectiveness of the anonymisation, to avoid the risk of re-identification. Furthermore, in some instances effective anonymisation may not be possible due to the nature or context of the data, or the purpose(s) for which you collect, use and retain it. Researchers may consider using the UK Data Services’ guidance on Anonymising qualitative and quantitative data.

Pseudonymisation replaces or removes information in a data set that identifies an individual. However, individuals can be identified by referring to other information held separately. You must also ensure that you keep the additional information separately and appropriate technical and organisational controls are in place. This is so you can ensure that it is not possible to re-identify an individual from use of the separately held additional information, or indeed any other information. Pseudonymisation does not change the status of personal data and remains in-scope of the UK GDPR regulations.

Differential privacy

Differential privacy is a method for measuring how much information the output of a computation reveals about an individual. It is based on the randomised injection of ‘noise’. Noise is a random alteration of data in a dataset so that values such as direct or indirect identifiers of individuals are harder to reveal.

Noise allows for ‘plausible deniability’ of a particular individual’s personal data being in the dataset (i.e. it is not possible to determine with confidence that information relating to a specific individual is present in the data).

Data treated by a differentially private algorithm does not necessarily result in anonymous information. If you do not configure differential privacy properly, there is a risk of personal data leakage from a series of different queries. The ICO’s guidance on Privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) provides additional information on this process.

Differential privacy is one of a number of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), which are technologies which embody fundamental data protection principles by minimising personal data use, maximising data security, and/or empowering individuals. The ICO’s guidance on PETs provides further information on these different technologies.

Freedom of information

Public authorities may need to disclose information under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000. The ICO provides guidance on the Act. The UK Data Service holds information on the Freedom of Information Act for researchers. Researchers should note that a Freedom of Information request entitles access to the content of information held, not necessarily to an exact original document (e.g. an interview transcript or dataset).

The Act does not affect copyright and intellectual property rights that give owners the right to protect their original work against commercial exploitation by others. However, there are specific requirements for Intellectual property rights under the Freedom of Information Act, which are covered in ICO guidance.

There are exemptions to disclosing information set out in the Freedom of Information Act. This includes the exemption on commercial interests in Section 43 of the Act which may be of relevance for some video games research. It covers two situations, which are subject to the public interest test:

• when information constitutes a trade secret (such as the recipe for a branded product); or

• when complying with the request would prejudice or would be likely to prejudice someone’s commercial interests

Further guidance on commercial interests is provided by the ICO.

3.3 Data sharing

This section outlines ways of gathering and utilising data, the process for data sharing between researchers, and guidance on accessing and using accredited data services.

Researchers should carefully consider potential sources of bias in any data they obtain. Data should demonstrably represent the population of interest (e.g. including high-spending or high-playtime players if these are the subject of the research questions), and be minimally transformed prior to sharing.

To support accessibility for all researchers in accessing data from industry, initial steps should involve careful consideration by those seeking receipt of industry data. Researchers should consider expanding the membership of such teams to include individuals from diverse institutions, fields, and viewpoints. Ideally such teams would routinely incorporate elements of individuals with different or opposing public scientific viewpoints, to work together in pursuit of shared knowledge generation.

Such access issues may also be resolved through data sharing: by making the data that underpins any study publicly available, researchers may not only allow scrutiny of their own methods, but also may in principle open up data to independent and complementary access by teams operating with less privilege. Data sharing does not fully mitigate the privileges associated with having access to the data earlier than others (e.g. being able to select the highest-interest research topics, publishing more quickly, etc).

Researchers may also consider UKRI guidance on trusted research and innovation, which sets out expectations of organisations funded by UKRI in relation to due diligence for international collaboration. Specific guidance on trusted research for academics, and for industry respectively, is provided by the National Protective Security Authority.

Data Sharing Code of Practice

The ICO’s Data sharing code of practice, is a statutory code under Section 121 of the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018. It provides practical guidance for organisations about how to share personal data in compliance with data protection law.

This includes guidance on data sharing processes, data sharing agreements, and sharing personal data in databases and lists, as well as checklists and data sharing request form templates.

To the greatest extent permitted by privacy and ethical concerns, all data sharing should adhere to FAIR data principles: data should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.

Further steps: data infrastructure

There is thus far limited evidence regarding the ability of such data sharing (as set out above) to facilitate data equity across the field, with shared datasets currently having limited reuse among researchers.

To facilitate better practice, data collection methods should be made accessible to the wider research community. It should be a high priority for researchers and industry partners to build social, administrative, and technological infrastructure which facilitates the ability of diverse researchers to generate and access game data. However, it should be noted that infrastructure within games and platforms is built for gameplay, rather than data sharing.

Accessible data sharing infrastructure can be supported in 3 ways:

1. Industry bodies and researchers could work together to develop (access-controlled) Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) suitable for research purposes.

2. Video games companies and platforms could implement “data download package” features that allow players to directly download a copy of the personal data held by the company on them. Such features reduce the burden on players and delays associated with making UK GDPR or DPA requests via email or other forms. Data download features can be implemented on social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and have been an invaluable resource for research.

3. Industry bodies and researchers could work together to adapt the terms of service language framing existing (access-controlled) APIs so that they are suitable for research purposes.

Data sharing technical standards

Data sharing should have effective governance and oversight mechanisms, with clear lines of appropriate responsibility across the research project lifecycle.

Privacy and security standards for data access

It is recommended that all researchers comply with ISO/IEC 27001:2022 or Cyber Essentials for information security management systems and ISO/IEC 27701:2019 or BS 10012:2017 for privacy information management requirements to support this engagement.

Access controls

Researchers using data repositories to store their data should consider any access controls that may be in place for large data repositories, including End User Licences. Access controls should always be proportionate to the kind of data and level of confidentiality involved. Further guidance is provided by the UK Data Service.

Using a Trusted Research Environment

Researchers may consider using a Trusted Research Environment (TRE) for securely storing research data. TREs allow approved researchers, accredited under the Digital Economy Act 2017, with a single location to access valuable datasets. Using a TRE provides assurances to people who provide their data that their data will only be accessed by accredited researchers.

Researchers who wish to gain accreditation under the Digital Economy Act 2017 to access data within TREs can follow the Office of National Statistics (ONS’s) Becoming an accredited researcher guidance. Accredited researchers under the Digital Economy Act 2017 will also enable access to other TRE’s too.

Access to data within TREs have their own individual environment requirements. Please check the TREs for their individual environment requirements.

Researchers, in choosing their data set(s) to perform research, are recommended to follow the Five Safes Framework, to ensure safe use of data in the data environment and provide assurance to data owners. Many TREs across government and academia in the UK and around the world use the framework.

Researchers, in choosing their data set(s) to perform research, are recommended to follow the Five Safes Framework, to ensure safe use of data in the data environment and provide assurance to data owners. Many TREs across government and academia in the UK and around the world use the framework.

The Five Safes are:

1. Safe People: trained and accredited researchers trusted to use data appropriately.

2. Safe Projects: data that are only used for valuable, ethical research that delivers clear public benefits.

3. Safe Settings: settings in which access to data is only possible using secure technology systems.

4. Safe Data: data that have been de-identified.

5. Safe Outputs: all research outputs that are checked to ensure they cannot identify data subjects.

Examples of Trusted Research Environments

The ONS’ Secure Research Service (SRS) provides accredited or approved researchers secure access to a wealth of de-identified, unpublished data to work on research projects for the public good.

The SRS will be replaced by the Integrated Data Service (IDS) that aims to build on the success of the SRS. The IDS will create a central hub of high quality, accessible data; critical for driving efficiency and improving public services. The IDS will not replace the SRS until 2025.

The SRS is a recommended TRE by the ADR UK (Administrative Data Research UK). The SRS is one of ADR UK’s several TREs through which approved researchers can access de-identified administrative data.

Researchers following social science and humanities research principles may wish to use the UK Data Service’s data depository.

A new data, insight and foresight service for the screen and performance industries, including video games, will be available from 2024 as part of AHRC’s CoSTAR programme.

Researchers working with healthcare data may wish to consider the TRE’s Health Data Research-UK (HDR-UK).

Digital Economy Act Accredited Processing Environments

Accredited Processing Environments are accredited under the Digital Economy Act 2017 for the purposes of processing data, whether that processing is concerned principally with the linkage or de-identification of data, or the storage and provision of secure access to de-identified data.

Copyright and database rights

Sources researchers may want to use in research may be subject to copyright. In the context of video games research, this may include structured datasets, Let’s Play (video documenting the playthrough of a video game) and live streaming, and aspects of video games themselves.

Structured datasets can be protected by 2 related IP rights – the selection or arrangement of material in a database can be protected by copyright if it is original, while the contents of a database can be protected by the database right if substantial investment in obtaining, verifying or presenting its data went into its creation.

Aspects of Let’s Play and livestreaming can also be protected by copyright, including the player’s words and actions as a dramatic work, clips as a film recording and audio as a sound recording.

Copyright can apply to several components of video games themselves, including:

• the underlying code, protected as a literary work

• any artwork and images

• any music and sound recording

• animated film and video extracts

• any text or words used in the game

Copying and/or publishing a substantial part of these works may infringe copyright and extracting or re-using a substantial part of the contents of a database may infringe a database right. However, a number of relevant exceptions to copyright for researchers may apply.

Further guidance on legal requirements for using copyright and database information as part of research and private study can also be found in Section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and Section 9 of The Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997. Additional information on acts permitted in relation to copyright works can be found in Chapter 3 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Further guidance from the UK government is also provided on Sui generis database rights.

Fair dealing and data sharing

You may wish to use the Government guidance on exceptions to copyright, and UK Data Service Sharing guidance on copyright for data sharing and fair dealing.

Under the fair dealing exceptions, copyright-protected content and database content can be copied for a number of purposes without infringing copyright or the database right, provided that the owner of the work is sufficiently acknowledged.

For copyright-protected content, there are 3 requirements for fair dealing exceptions to apply:

1. The use must be fair, i.e. it must correspond to the way a fair-minded and honest person would have dealt with the work. To determine whether this is the case, you can consider:
   
   - does using the work affect the market for the original work? If a use of a work acts as a substitute for it, causing the owner to lose revenue, then it is not likely to be fair
   
   - is the amount of the work taken reasonable and appropriate? Was it necessary to use the amount that was taken? Usually, only part of a work may be used

2. The use must be compatible with one of the specific fair dealing exceptions. In the context of video games research, the following exceptions are available:
   
   - non-commercial teaching or research purposes
   
   - private study
   
   - quotation, criticism or review, and
   
   - text and data analysis for non-commercial research

3. The user must give sufficient acknowledgement to the owner of the work

As set out in The Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997, the database right in a database which has been made available to the public in any manner is not infringed by fair dealing with a substantial part of its content if:

1. The part is extracted from the database by a lawful user of the database,

2. The use must be for the purpose of illustration for teaching or research and not for any commercial purpose, and

3. The user must indicate the source.

Data quality standards

All qualitative and quantitative data used in line with the Framework should be of a transparent, fair, balanced and scrutable quality. Furthermore, data utilised within the Framework should be accessible and operable within the UK’s data infrastructures.

Data standards for data used within research projects should align with the UK government data quality framework data quality principles, to ensure that best practice, procedures and attitudes that will be most helpful to ensuring your data is fit for purpose. Additional guidance on data quality for researchers can be found on the UK Data Service. Data quality should be included as part of Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA), under Step 4 of the identification of the need for a DPIA: Assess necessity and proportionality.

Whilst the data quality framework is directed at the central government, many of the concepts and approaches are broadly applicable, and the data quality framework can be a useful guide for anyone wanting to improve data quality. You also may wish to use the government’s data quality action plan, to demonstrate whether your data is fit for purpose, understand where to put resources to improve its quality and set out goals to consistently improve your data.

Examples of data sharing processes

To guide data sharing processes, Annex A outlines four diagrams of data flows for researchers to demonstrate examples for some of the different methods for safely and securely requesting, accessing and storing data securely. This may support researchers to identify the best data management process for their project.

These diagrams give evidence of data sharing across 4 different methods.

1. Data flow using updated Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) in video games

2. Data flow using NHS data (as an NHS clinician/ MRC researcher)

3. Researcher using a Trusted Research Environment (TRE)

4. Players uploading data to a Trusted Research Environment (TRE)

It is recommended that researchers follow the requirements for data management as set out in the Framework. Researchers are not limited to using this list, and may use their own methods of data sharing and data gathering for their research project.

3.4 Players and industry participation in research projects

This section outlines how players can share their data with academia and industry, and how industry can work with players and share player data securely and responsibly.

Players participating in research projects

Opportunities

Engaging players directly to ask their permission to donate their data allows researchers to work directly with players to gather data as part of their research project. Researchers may find working with player data directly to be both less time and resource intensive than receiving data sets, or generating specific APIs for research, from the video games industry.

Players may also work directly with researchers as part of their research project, which might be considered as adding a level of comfort (particularly for parents, guardians or carers providing permission for their children’s data to be shared with researchers as part of their research project). Researchers working with children and young people should refer to UKRI’s guidance on research with children and young people and to specific guidance from relevant Research Councils as appropriate.

Engaging players directly as part of their research project can allow researchers to consider different approaches as part of their research, including:

• interdisciplinary, or multidisciplinary, approaches to their research

• adopting longitudinal or cross-sectional approaches; and

• mixed methods approaches

Researchers should be aware that direct engagement with players for research study can lead to self-reporting and subjective data, rather than objective data directly from industry.

Considerations

This Framework seeks to inform all video games research. It is recommended that researchers who use the Framework are from an accredited research institution. We have attached the most recent list of research institutions from UKRI:

A list of all UK research institutions.

A list of eligible public sector research institutions.

A list of eligible independent research organisations.

All research institutions should provide participants with ethical research agreement documentation as part of the research. Clear consent requirements should be set out by researchers throughout the research project, as well as setting out how personal data will be processed and used within the research project.

Industry

Opportunities

Working with researchers as part of research projects may allow the video games sector to support researchers to deliver research innovations, and research in the public interest, in relation to research on video games.

Researchers and industry partners can work together to generate specific APIs to create a unique research database for the research project.

This approach allows researchers to take a broad interdisciplinary approach to the research. Researchers may adopt longitudinal or cross-sectional approaches, as well as mixed methods approaches to illuminate different aspects surrounding key research questions.

Researchers could consider pre-registering their data. This can help researchers to set out hypothesis-generating research, which focuses on exploratory, data-driven research, from hypothesis-testing research. Further considerations can be found from the UK Reproducibility Network and Centre for Open Science.

Considerations

Under open data principles, researchers should ethically publish all datasets used in their research project, including any personalised datasets, as well as all relevant research assets, at the earliest opportunity. This is because researchers may need to have future access to the data, follow-up projects may also analyse or add to the data, and data is also often re-used by other researchers.

Researchers may need to spend time engaging with representatives from industry, to outline their approach to independent research which, if data cannot be open, should meet the FAIR principles: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. This may hold implications for the timelines and costs of a research project, which should be accounted for before starting the research project.

Researchers and industry partners should engage on data safeguarding principles throughout the research project. Industry and researchers must make players aware of any consent requirements for sharing their data as part of this research project. Video games sector participants must receive each individual player’s consent before sharing each player’s data with the researcher.

Case studies

The Many Faces of Monetisation: Understanding the Diversity and Extremity of Player Spending in Mobile Games via Massive-scale Transactional Analysis. This study follows the analysis of relevant subgroups of mobile games spenders from a transactional dataset, assessing over 69 million players for 2,873 mobile games, is reflexive to needs/concerns of gamers, and is associated with a transparent disclosure statement.

Time spent playing video games is unlikely to impact well-being. This study outlines a cross-sectional approach for engagement between an industry partner and researchers to use player data to understand player behaviours. It uses open source software to make the research project data open access.

Annex A: Examples of safe and secure data sharing for researchers

Diagram 1 - Data flow using updated Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) in video games

Diagram 2 - Data flow using NHS data (as an NHS clinician/MRC researcher)

Diagram 3 - Researcher using a Trusted Research Environment (TRE)

Diagram 4 - Players uploading data to a Trusted Research Environment (TRE)

Annex B: Legislation, standards and glossary of terms

Information on legislation, standards and associated guidance referred to in the Framework is provided below for ease of reference.

Topic	Legislation and further guidance
Copyright and Database Information	Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997
Digital Economy	Digital Economy Act 2017
Equality	Equality Act 2010
Freedom of Information Act	Freedom of Information Act 2000 Guide to Freedom of Information
National Security and Investment	National Security and Investment Act 2021
Privacy and Data Protection Requirements	Data Protection Act 2018 UK GDPR

Standards

Standards	Guidance
Age Appropriate Design Code	Age appropriate design: a code of practice for online services
Data Ethics	Data Ethics Framework
Data Quality	Government Data Quality Framework
Information Security Management	ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Cyber Essentials.
Intellectual Property Protection	Intellectual Property and your work Protect your intellectual property
Quality Management Systems	ISO 9001:2015
Privacy Information Management	BS 10012:2017 ISO/IEC 27701:2019

Glossary of terms and definitions

Many of these terms have existing recognised definitions so we have used these definitions where appropriate. However, video games is a developing research discipline and we anticipate that some definitions may be amended over time. We will keep the contents of this table under review:

Term	Definition
Anonymisation	Aggregating or transforming personal data so it can no longer be related back to a given individual. Often this is incorrectly used for data which has only been de-identified.
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)	A piece of software that lets one program access or control another program. APIs allow applications to share data without requiring developers to share software code.
Augmented Reality (AR)	Open and partially immersive environments that allow digital objects to be overlaid onto the physical world.
Copyright	Copyright is a property right which subsists in accordance with the following descriptions of work - (a) original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works, (b) sound recordings, films or broadcasts, and (c) the typographical arrangement of published editions.
Data Ethics	Value judgements related to data and corresponding practices in order to formulate and support morally good solutions.
Differential Privacy	A method for measuring how much information the output of a computation reveals about an individual.
Intellectual Property (IP)	An item created using your mind - for example, a story, an invention, an artistic work or a symbol. Further information can be found in the UK government’s published guidance, Intellectual property and your work.
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)	Rights given to persons over their intellectual property; the creations of their minds. Further information can be found in the UK government’s published guidance, Intellectual property and your work.
Mixed Reality	Blending physical and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualisations where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real-time.
Personal data	Information that relates to an identified or identifiable living individual.
Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs)	Technologies that embody fundamental data protection principles by minimising personal data use, maximising data security, and/or empowering individuals.
Processing for Statistical Purposes	Processing where the main objective is to generate statistics.
Pseudonymisation	A technique that replaces, removes or transforms information that identifies an individual, but the individual can be identified by referring to other information held separately.
Scientific or historical research	As defined within the UK GDPR. Research carried out in traditional academic settings, and includes the full range of academic research including for example social sciences, humanities and the arts. It can also include research carried out in commercial settings, and technological development, innovation and demonstration.
Trusted Research Environment (TRE)	Highly secure computing environments that provide remote access to data for approved research.
Virtual Reality (VR)	Fully immersive three-dimensional environments.