Research projects and selected publications

Since the foundation of the institute in 2013, we have been involved in a number of funded research projects. Together, we have published over 160 academic publications including conference papers, journals articles, books, and book chapters.

Follow the links below to learn about our current and completed projects. You can also see some of our most notable publications at the bottom of the page.

Promoting Understanding and Lifelong learning Successful Education through the ARTs and culture (PULSE-ART)

Collaborators: Collaborators: (at UoM) Georgios Yannakakis, Antonios Liapis, Iro Voulgari

Funding Scheme: Horizon Europe

Project Website

Online Procedural Content Generation via Multi-objective Optimisation and Learning (OPtiMaL)

Collaborators: (at UoM) Georgios Yannakakis, Antonios Liapis, Ahmed Khalifa, Konstantinos Makantasis

Funding Scheme: SINO-MALTA Fund of the Malta Council for Science and Technology (MCST)

Project Website

RECLAIM: AI-powered Robotic Material Recovery in a Box

Collaborators: (at UoM) Antonios Liapis, Georgios Yannakakis

Funding Scheme: Horizon Europe

Project Website

Developing a STEAM Roadmap for Science Education in Horizon Europe (RoadSTEAMer)

Collaborators: Collaborators: (at IDG) Georgios Yannakakis, Iro Voulgari

Funding Scheme: Horizon Europe

Project Website

HUMAINE: Human-Centered Machine Learning

Collaborators: Antonios Liapis, Georgios N. Yannakakis

Funding Scheme: FUSION R&I: Research Excellence Programme

Project Website

LAW-GAME

Collaborators: (at UoM) Georgios Yannakakis, Iro Voulgari, Antonios Liapis

Funding scheme: H2020

Project Website

SG4NS Developing Emotional Competences for Nursing Students

Collaborators: (at UM) Prof. Georgios Yannakakis

European project focused on developing emotional competencies for nursing students through serious games.

Funding scheme: Erasmus+

Project Website

UPSKILLS: UPgrading the SKIlls of Linguistics and Language Students

Collaborators: (at IDG) Georgios Yannakakis, Antonios Liapis

European Project to identify and tackle the gaps and mismatches in digital skills for linguistics and language students

Funding Scheme: Erasmus+

Project Website

FRAME: ReFRAMing MachinE Learning via Ordinal Tensors and Deep Quality Diversity

Collaborators: Georgios Yannakakis, Antonios Liapis

Funding Scheme: University of Malta Research Innovation and Development Trust Reserch Excellence Fund

TAMED: Tensor-based machine learning towards general models of affect

Collaborators: (at UoM) Konstantinos Makantasis, Georgios Yannakakis

Funding Scheme: H2020 - MSCA-WF

Project Website

PrismArch

Collaborators: (at UoM) Georgios Yannakakis, Antonios Liapis

PrismArch will design and develop a VR-aided design environment that will be able to host both architects and engineers towards a common goal, the effective realization of an architectural project.

Funding Scheme: H2020

AI4Media

Collaborators: (at UoM) Georgios Yannakakis, Konstantinos Makantasis, Antonios Liapis

Centre of excellence and network of researchers across Europe and beyond for delivering the next generation of core AI advances to serve the key sector of Media

Funding Scheme: H2020

Project Website

Learn to Machine Learn

Collaborators: (at UoM) Georgios Yannakakis, Iro Voulgari, Antonios Liapis, Vanessa Camilleri

The LearnML project transfers the notion of AI literacy to primary & secondary education and introduces students to the core principles of AI and machine learning

Funding Scheme: Erasmus+

Project Website

Ubisoft Research Project

Collaborators: Georgios Yannakakis (University of Malta), Alessandro Canossa (Massive Entertainment - A Ubisoft Studio)

AI research in collaboration with Ubisoft.

Funding Scheme: Industry funded research

Project Website

COM n PLAY SCIENCE

Collaborators: (at UoM) Georgios Yannakakis, Iro Voulgari, Antonios Liapis

A project that aims to help better understand how informal science learning is taking place through coding, making, and play activities.

Funding Scheme: H2020

Project Website

CURIO: A Teaching Toolkit for Fostering Scientific Curiosity’

Collaborators: Stefano Gualeni, Marcello A. Gómez Maureira, Sandra Dingli, Andre' Xuereb, Danielle M. Farrugia

Funding Scheme: ERASMUS+ strategic partner action KA2

Project Website

ENVISAGE: ENhance VIrtual learning Space using Applied Gaming in Education

Collaborators: Georgios N. Yannakakis, Antonios Liapis

Funding Scheme: H2020

Project Website

eCrisis: Europe in Crisis

Collaborators: Georgios N. Yannakakis, Vanessa Camilleri, Owen Sacco, Antonios Liapis

Funding Scheme: Erasmus+

Project Website

Deep Design

Collaborators: Georgios Yannakakis, Antonios Liapis

Funding Scheme: University of Malta Research Innovation and Development Trust

CrossCult: Empowering reuse of digital cultural heritage in context-aware crosscuts of European history

Collaborators: (at UoM) Georgios Yannakakis, Antonios Liapis

Funding Scheme: H2020-REFLECTIVE

Project Website

FORETELL: Flood and Fire Safety Awareness in Virtual Worlds

Collaborators: (at UoM) Stefano Gualeni, Marcello Gómez Maureira, Philip Bonanno

Funding Scheme: Erasmus +

Project Website

GADTRAP: Game Design as a Self-Transformative Practice

Collaborators: Stefano Gualeni, Marcello A. Gómez Maureira

Funding Scheme: University of Malta Research Fund

Project Website

Go Go Gozo

Collaborators: University of Manchester, Warwick University, Utrecht University, University of Malta, Palacky University Olomouc

Funding Scheme: Erasmus +

Autonomous Computational Game Designers

Collaborators: (at UoM) Georgios Yannakakis, Antonios Liapis, Phil Lopes, Daniele Gravina, and Daniel Karavolos

Funding Scheme: FP7 Marie Curie CIG

Project Website

REFLECT: Reflective Game Design

Collaborators: Rilla Khaled, Pippin Barr

Funding Scheme: Marie Curie

Project Website

C2Learn: Fostering Creativity in Learning through Digital Games

Collaborators: (at UoM) Georgios Yannakakis, Mirjam P. Eladhari, Antonios Liapis and Phil Lopes

Funding Scheme: FP7-ICT

Project Website

ILearnRW: Integrated Intelligent Learning Environment for Reading and Writing

Collaborators: (at UoM) Georgios Yannakakis, Rilla Khaled, Héctor Martínez, Vincent Farrugia, and Thom Cuschieri

Funding scheme: FP7-ICT

Project Website

BOOKS:

Gualeni, S. & Fassone, R. (2022) Fictional Games: A Philosophy of Worldbuilding and Imaginary Play. London (UK): Bloomsbury Publishing.
Gualeni, S. & Vella, D. (2020) Virtual Existentialism: Meaning and Subjectivity in Virtual Worlds. Basingstoke (UK): Palgrave Pivot.
Calleja, G. (2011) In-Game: From Immersion to Incorporation. Cambridge (MA): the MIT press.
Gualeni, S. (2015) Virtual Worlds as Philosophical Tools. Basingstoke (UK): Palgrave Macmillan.
Yannakakis, G. N. and Julian Togelius. (2018) Artificial Intelligence and Games. Naw York (NY): Springer.

OTHER SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

Gualeni, S. & Van de Mosselaer, N. (2021), 'Ludic Unreliability and Deceptive Game Design', Journal of the Philosophy of Computer Games, 3 (1).
Liapis, A., Yannakakis, G. N., Nelson, M. J., Preuss, M., Bidarra, R. (2019) 'Orchestrating Game Generation,' in Transactions on Games, vol. 11, no 1, pp. 48-68.
Oliva, C. (2013) 'Soundmarks in Digital Games Soundscapes', paper presented at the Society for Cinema & Media Studies 53rd Annual Conference, Chicago (IL)
Vella, D. (2015) 'No Mastery Without Mystery: Dark Souls and the Ludic Sublime'. Game Studies, 15(1)
Yannakakis, G. N., Togelius, J. (2011), 'Experience-driven Procedural Content Generation', in IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, 2(3), pp. 147-161 [Most Influential Paper Award]