Simulation and gaming conference returns to Stockholm
KTH Royal Institute of Technology will host the International Simulation and Gaming Association’s Conference 2026 in June at Campus Flemingsberg. The 57th ISAGA conference will gather students, teachers, trainers, researchers and practitioners from around the world, from June 22 to 25.
“It has been 13 years since the last time the conference was hosted in Sweden,” says KTH Associate Professor Jayanth Raghothama, the event’s organiser.
“It will be great to get the community together,” he says.
The International Simulation and Gaming Association (ISAGA) is an organization and community of simulation game professionals with an interest in the science of games, simulations and related methodologies. ISAGA members study learning, design, facilitation of participatory methods, game design and apply those to a wide range of systems, such as urban planning, agriculture, transportation, energy and supply chains.
“Simulation games are experiential, rule-based, interactive environments, where players learn by taking actions and by experiencing their effects through feedback mechanisms that are deliberately built into and around the game,” Raghothama says.
Since the inception of the community in the 1970s, simulation games have been used for data collection, studying the effects of interventions and pedagogical research, among other purposes, he says.
Raghothama uses this methodology extensively in his own research. His team has employed methods from simulation gaming to understand the factors that affect mental health in children and young people, and to design programs and policies to promote wellbeing. They also have used it to understand decision making in traffic control rooms.
ISAGA 2026 will focus on game science, with the theme: “The Science of Gaming and Simulation for a World in Systemic Crises“.
“The focus is on the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of simulation gaming as a discipline, and the impact it can have on complex systems and crises,” Raghothama says.
Jon Lindhe ( jlindhe@kth.se )