Short Abstract:

This interactive workshop allows participants to play ‘Thesis Quest: Escape to the Ivory Tower’, a board game developed as a tool to foster interdisciplinarity and collaboration across STS. Simple, fun, and adaptable, it breaks down knowledge silos and expands the possibilities of STS projects.

Long Abstract:

STS is ostensibly an interdisciplinary discipline. Despite this, it’s all too easy for researchers and educators to fall into the trap of knowledge silos, which can result in individualism, academic isolation, and narrowed research pathways and outputs. This is especially likely amongst students and staff new to the discipline. This applied, interactive workshop allows participants to play ‘Thesis Quest: Escape to the Ivory Tower’, a board game developed as a tool to foster interdisciplinarity and collaboration across the whole discipline. Imagined as a journey through various aspects of research and learning in academia, players collect four cards (discipline, theoretical framework, research method, case study) as they progress through the game, with which they must construct a 60 second thesis to present to the other players. As these cards are random, it encourages players to make connections outside of their knowledge silos and consider the breadth of possible STS projects. Players also collect ‘event’ cards that can help or hinder progress in the game. These reflect real-world influences on the development of research, familiarising players with the writing process, alongside constructing its content. The medium of play enables participants to actively engage with STS concepts in a supportive environment, allowing them to experiment, make mistakes, and broaden their knowledge. Designed to be simple, fun, and easily replicable across universities and departments, Thesis Quest is being integrated into the UCL STS department’s postgraduate curriculum.

Practical requirements: Thesis Quest works best with groups of 4-6, and is designed to finish within an hour. The workshop requires a room with one table per group. I would bring copies of the board game, so no other materials are necessary. The number of participants would be limited by room capacity as I can bring more copies of the game; I’d suggest 40 as the maximum.