On October 18, 2024, the final conference of the GRACING project took place in Harghita County, Romania. Representing 8D, designer Bas Altenburg and Sven Snoek attended to share our expertise in design thinking and game-based approaches. Our goal: to support heritage professionals in developing sustainable, playful approaches to heritage preservation. The conference showcased five pilot projects that demonstrated how the best practices and e-learning module, to which we contributed, have been put into practice by local heritage professionals.

Design-driven research: what is the added value? Successful implementation of research results requires a perfect balance between user, the form of the intervention and the context in which it will be used. When all these elements are well aligned, research results end up where they really make a difference: in the middle of society.

Nienke Beerlage-de Jong is Assistant Professor at the University of Twente and a researcher in the field of infectious diseases and One Health, a field in which human, animal and planetary health are closely linked. She worked with 8D on a serious game about complex decision-making in zoonoses, diseases that can pass from humans to animals.