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We are seeking doctoral researchers in the area of gameful and engaging technologies for sustainability to join us at the Research Centre of Gameful Realities, Tampere University. The positions are situated in the broad area of engaging media technologies for prosocial, sustainable, and transformative applications.
We are looking for candidates who are interested in investigating how novel engaging media and technologies (such as extended reality, gamification, gameful systems, bioadaptive technologies, artificial intelligence, conversational agents, and other interactive or experiential media) can help people reflect, learn, engage with humanity’s wicked challenges, collaborate, or imagine and shape futures in these domains.
The positions are suitable for applicants with a background in, for example, computer science, human-computer interaction, affective computing, information systems, cognitive science, media and communication studies, design, health technology, behavioural sciences, education, economics, or human-environment interaction. We welcome both theoretically ambitious and empirically rigorous doctoral projects, including those combining different approaches such as technology development, experimental research, qualitative inquiry, design, and public engagement.
The selected doctoral researcher(s) will develop their own research plans within this broader research agenda. Some of the positions are expected to be connected to the project CLIMETA, while others may be shaped around the OPEN theme relating to the above-described emerging research directions within the Research Centre of Gameful Realities.
We therefore welcome a) applicants with a clear interest in CLIMETA, as well as b) applicants whose proposed research fits the wider theme of engaging media and technologies for sustainable applications (OPEN). In your application, please indicate whether you are primarily applying for a position connected to CLIMETA or OPEN position within the broader research theme of engaging media and technologies. You may also indicate interest in both, if applicable.
Research Context
1. Non project-specific / OPEN application
Engaging technologies increasingly shape how people encounter information, learn, make decisions, understand themselves, relate to others, participate in communities, and act in the world. Games and gamification, extended reality, virtual environments, AI-supported systems, conversational agents, bioadaptive technologies, and similar avenues are creating new possibilities for learning, collaboration, participation, wellbeing, behaviour change, creativity, and social imagination.
At the same time, societies are navigating complex transformations related to, for example, sustainability, technological change, changing forms of work and consumption, social polarisation, and participation. Engaging technologies can make complex systems experiential, create new forms of social interaction and participation, support learning and reflection, facilitate perspective-taking and collaboration, and enable people to explore alternative behaviours and possible futures.
The recruited doctoral researcher(s) will investigate how games, XR, AI, gamification, and other engaging and emerging media technologies can contribute to individual, social, and societal benefit. Research may address, for example, learning and literacy, motivation and behaviour, interaction and user experience, agency and participation, social connection and cooperation, wellbeing, perspective-taking, creativity, systems thinking, public engagement with science, digital and AI-mediated interaction, or the design and evaluation of transformative experiences. We are particularly interested in research addressing sustainability broadly understood, including its environmental, social, economic, cultural, and technological dimensions, as well as the relationships and trade-offs between them.
2. Project CLIMETA: VR, Metacognition, and Climate Change engagement
Virtual reality can uniquely instantiate the dynamic coupling of mind, body, and environment at the root of thinking and learning by having users embody avatars that are embedded in multisensory and context-rich worlds, enact understanding through interactive, consequential engagement, and extend their cognition through features such as artificial intelligence (AI) guides and bioadaptive feedback.
CLIMETA investigates how immersive virtual reality and related engaging technologies can support meta-engagement: people’s capacity to become aware of, reflect on, and regulate their own cognitive, emotional, and behavioural responses to complex societal challenges such as climate change.
Climate change is often approached as a matter of information, attitudes, or behaviour. However, people’s engagement with climate change is also shaped by deeper cognitive, emotional, and social processes. Barriers such as short-term thinking, climate anxiety, polarisation, in-group bias, distorted self-perceptions, and biased information processing can limit people’s ability to engage constructively with complexity.
Within CLIMETA, possible doctoral research topics may include, for example, VR-based climate engagement, metacognitive reflection, avatar embodiment, perspective-taking, AI-supported reflective agents, bioadaptive media, and developing methods for assessing meta-engagement in immersive environments.
JOB DESCRIPTION
In this position, we invite candidates to propose their own research agenda relating to engaging media and technologies by drawing on methodologies such as design and participatory design workshops, VR development, LLM conversational agent design and/or evaluation methodologies, and laboratory experiments including interviews and psychophysiological measurements. We especially welcome applicants interested in laboratory and experimental research, while also valuing interdisciplinary and design-oriented approaches. The doctoral researchers selected for this position will develop their own research agenda within the broader scope of the open positions.
Candidates are expected to design studies and disseminate them in a variety of ways, including publishing in academic venues and demonstrating the results in related events, including those oriented to the general public. The work includes research planning, experiment organising, data gathering and analysis, article writing, and dissemination of results. Moreover, the candidate is expected to participate in project-wide collaboration and further funding acquisition, as well as participate in community-building more broadly within the research group and the Research Centre of Gameful Realities. Teaching and supervision will be negotiated based on the interests of the candidate.
REQUIREMENTS
The requirements below are the qualities we envision to be suitable for the defined tasks. However, we encourage all candidates who see themselves contributing in unique ways to one of these projects to apply.
Minimum qualifications
- Applicable degree: i.e. Master’s degree in relevant field before the start of employment (latest 1.1.2027).
- Fluency in English
Useful dimensions of candidate’s background
- Computer science / Human-computer interaction / Affective computing / Information systems
- Applied psychology / cognitive science
- Media and communication studies
- Design (e.g., interaction design, game design)
- Health technology
- Behavioural sciences
- Educational sciences (especially public engagement with science)
- Economics
- Human-environment interaction
Possible methodological skills
- Aptitude for quantitative and/or qualitative empirical research (especially laboratory experiments)
- Aptitude for psychometric measurement
- Aptitude for psychophysiological measurement (especially real-time signal processing and feedback)
- Ability to independently develop gamified environments (software)
- Understanding of design-driven methodologies (e.g., speculative and critical design, research through design, participatory design, co-design)
- LLM conversational agent design and/or evaluation methodologies
Advantageous qualities
- Strong academic writing skills and existing publications
- Drive for rigorous and impactful research
- Drive for a career in research
WE OFFER
The full-time position will be filled for a fixed-term period of four (4) years, starting upon mutual agreement. A trial period of six (6) months applies to all our new employees.
The salary will be based on both the job requirements and the employee’s personal performance in accordance with the Finnish University Salary System. According to the criteria applied to teaching and research staff, the position of Doctoral Researcher is placed on level 2–4 of the job requirements scale. A typical starting salary for a Doctoral Researcher is approximately €2,800 per month. The salary increases based on experience and the progress of doctoral studies.
The University offers a wide range of staff benefits, such as occupational health care, flexible working hours, excellent sports facilities on campus, and several on-campus restaurants and cafés with staff discounts. Please read more about working at Tampere University.