Our primary specialisation lies in Historical and Heritage Game Studies—research focused on games that either depict a historical past or engage meaningfully with cultural heritage. This mirrors the expertise and interests of Dr. Michał Mochocki, our C-HIGHER director and principal investigator, and it forms the core of our open-access journal, “European Historical Game Studies,” launched by the Faculty of History in late 2024.
We are slowly advancing into Game History. Our team includes Dr. Jan Daniluk, a leading authority on the history of casinos and gambling. Dr. Mochocki is engaged in two long-term projects whose results have yet to see the light of day: one on Polish games that depict Polish history, and the other on Ukrainian games inspired by the events of the 2014/2022 Russian aggression. Much of this work is currently in progress or pending grant funding.
Another promising avenue is game-based historical education and educational game design. In October 2025, our team will welcome Dr. Ewelina Gdaniec, a specialist in digital history and edu-games. As several grant proposals are shaping up behind the scenes, we will expand into historical game-based learning later this year.
We are committed to promoting research as ‘popular science’ through historical games and playful events. Leading this charge is archaeologist Dr. Wacław Kulczykowski, famously known as “the guy whose doctorate was played by 2 mln people around the world”. Check out his game “Waterworks!” and go medieval… in plumbing.
We have room for research under the banner of Culture Studies. Dr. Marta Tymińska (Faculty of Languages) specialises in avatar studies, ludonarratology, and game culture studies. Much of Dr. Mochocki’s earlier work in Heritage Game Studies was similarly classified.
R&D → R&I
We are open to Research & Development projects (fancier label: Research & Innovation) with digital and nondigital game studios, as well as game-based learning and instructional design companies. Our standard contribution to academia-industry partnerships is ‘industrial research’ and ‘experimental development’ (per GBER definitions) in the form of research-based game design and prototyping. As a Faculty of History, we are also qualified to offer historical consultancy for games, drawing on state-of-the-art expertise in history, art history, or archaeology.
An area yet to be explored is collaboration with the defense, resilience, and crisis response sectors. Our team includes defense and security specialists Dr. Kornel Bielawski (Faculty of Social Sciences) and Dr. Bartosz Odorowicz (Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk). We recognise the role of wargaming in defense and resilience planning, peace-gaming in peace education, and serious games in counterpropaganda efforts. History and heritage are not central to these fields, but they are significant enough to justify R&D for governmental and public actors.
Doctoral School
Based at the Faculty of History, our Doctoral School offers advanced degrees in History, Art History, Archaeology, and Culture & Religion Studies. Although the Polish academic system does not formally recognise Game Studies, historical games can be the focus for dissertations in History or Culture Studies.
Currently, our doctoral courses are offered in Polish: a more-than-minor disadvantage for prospective foreign candidates. Establishing an English-speaking, international doctoral programme in Historical Game Studies is one of our long-term ambitions.
Last but not least, we warmly invite candidates interested in industrial doctorates (“doktorat wdrożeniowy”) centred on the intersection of games and history/heritage – whether in gamedev, ed-tech or the heritage industry.