The Innovation Game. Fostering collective confidence and agency for positive and sustainable futures through play.

Abstract: This paper presents the learning approach developed at the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, University of Bristol, with a particular focus on the project The Innovation Game. The initiative seeks to prepare a new generation of professionals who not only possess sustainability literacy and systems thinking skills, but also demonstrate the mindsets and postures required to lead sustainable transitions across diverse sectors. Framed as an open and playful challenge to be completed within six weeks, the project engaged eighteen interdisciplinary teams in the co-design, prototyping, and testing of eighteen distinct board games. Each game aimed to support and educate emerging innovators to engage with a defined set of values and principles, and to inspire positive, systemic change towards sustainable or regenerative futures. While this paper offers initial insights into how students’ sense of agency and belief in collective confidence for achieving sustainable transformations may be strengthened, The Innovation Game study ultimately seeks to contribute to the development of a broader learning framework for higher education.