"It's a miracle the curiosity survives formal education." [Albert Einstein]

The 80Days project is a path-finding research initiative of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development (FP7) to explore new frontiers in Digital Educational Games (DEGs), which combine effective learning with fun and pleasure. The project ran from April 2008 to September 2010 and accomplished its mission highly successful!

Reaching this desirable vision, digital educational games (DEGs) may compete with their non-educational counterparts in terms of narrative and gaming quality. Since computer games won our children’s hearts anyway, such combination may prevent the parents’ hearts to be broken.

To cross today’s horizon of educational games, a scientifically sound and valid methodological and technological foundation is required. Grounding on this mission, 80Days is a RTD project concerned with theories, methodologies, and technologies for game-based learning.

To accomplish a significant step towards successful and effective educational games, 80Days is addressing the following two main objectives: First, integrating models of adaptive personalised learning with those of adaptive interactive storytelling, and second, merging virtual game environments with existing learning resources, thus reducing development costs and time. These fusions will result in an adaptive and responsive system, enabling the understanding of active learning processes within a virtual learning environment, adapting to individual needs and abilities, and therefore fully exploiting the learners’ capabilities.

Take a journey to our project and learn more about the future of learning by joyfully playing computer games.

The 80Days project is budgeted with 4.245 million Euros and co-funded with 3.297 million Euros from the Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development (FP7) of the European Commission’s ICT-Programme. It has a duration of 30 months starting from April 2008.

The Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development (FP7) is the European Union´s chief instrument for funding research over the period 2007 to 2013. The broad objectives of FP7 have been grouped into four categories: Cooperation, Ideas, People and Capacities. http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html

The specific programme on "Cooperation" supports all types of research activities carried out by different research bodies in trans-national cooperation and aims to gain or consolidate leadership in key scientific and technology areas. The Cooperation programme is sub-divided into ten distinct themes. http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/cooperation/home_en.html

ICT – “Information and Communication Technologies” is the distinctive theme within the Cooperation programme 80Days is embedded. Information and Communication Technologies are critical to improve the competitiveness of European industry and to meet the demands of its society and economy. http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/