Progress on the Gaming for Peace (GAP) project continues at a swift pace with the first round of stakeholder interviews scheduled to begin in January 2017. During this project phase, GAP researchers will be collecting deployment experiences from members of our stakeholder partner organisations.
Individuals from the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Finnish Defence Forces, Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland, Polish National Police, Bulgarian Defence Force, and Portuguese State Police will participate in interviews. We will also interview NGO workers and civil servants with peacekeeping mission experience. These will be used to develop the curriculum for the eventual GAP game, meaning the game is based on real-life experiences and examples.
But what questions to ask such a diverse group? How to get to the skills most important in the field? Researchers from University of Ulster (UU) and Trinity College Dublin (TCD) met on Friday 18th November to workshop these points. Over a large pot of tea, an interview schedule was developed which seeks to gather experience of cooperation, communication and partnership experienced on deployment, amongst other things. The questions developed are now ready to be piloted, which is due to take place in December.
