10:00-11:30: EPIC-WE Artwalk & Games through Culture Expo
ARoS Art Museum: Experience the art and collections that young people have engaged to create Games through Culture. Get introduced to and try the games.
Join us for the EPIC-WE Artwalk at ARoS Art Museum. Here you will get to experience some of the artworks that has been used as game-making material in young people’s creation of more than 100 ‘Games through Culture’ during 12 Cultural Game Jams - You will also get the chance to experience some of the young people’s ‘Games through Culture’ which will be showcased at the EPIC-WE Games through Culture Expo at ARoS during the day. Get insight into and try the games to experience how cultural heritage can engage and empower youth and give voice to new youth perspectives and cultural heritage experiences.
11:30-12:45: Walk to AIAS, Lunch & Legacies
AIAS, Aarhus University: Catch your lunch while walking the EPIC-WE Wall of Legacies and sharing your perspectives in the EPIC-WE Policy Corner.
EPIC-WE Wall of Legacies
Walk the timeline of the EPIC-WE and experience the project in pictures, stories, activities, deliverables, milestones, and key events.
EPIC-WE Policy Corner
Get involved and share your perspective at the EPIC-WE Policy Corner. Discuss with us and help to prioritise what us important for youth, education, creative industries, and cultural institutions when it comes to valuable policy futures and games & culture
12:45-16:00: EPIC-WE Conference Part 1 – Knowledge & Innovations
AIAS, Aarhus University: Get state-of-the-art, key research results, and core innovations of the EPIC-WE project: QH Cultural Hubs, Cultural Game Jams, Games through/for Culture, and youths empowered participation through game-making as culture-making.
12:45-13:00: Welcoming Remarks & Formal Opening
Opening of the EPIC-WE Legacies Event at Aarhus University, including welcoming remarks, formal opening, and practical information.
13:00-13:30: EPIC-WE in Brief: The project and its legacies
With EPIC-WE Project Lead Rikke Toft Nørgård, Aarhus University
Sharing the overarching results, innovation outcomes, and its core models, kits, and concepts with the participants. Where did we start, what did we do, what came out of the project, what do we know, and what might it all mean? The presentation also includes opportunities for participants to share their reflections on the project and its results.
13:30-14:00: EPIC-WE Ecosystems: Quadruple Helix Cultural Innovation & Cross-sector Cultural Hubs in Research and Practice
Discover the EPIC-WE Quadruple Helix Ecosystem and Cultural Hub model for empowered cross-sector futures. We unpack the developed and tested ecosystem and model that brngs together cultural institutions, creative industries, education, and civic stakeholders to collaborate and co-design together ‘in the middle’. Participants will gain insight into the principles and recommendations underpinning the QH Cultural Hub model developed and tested through the project. But also, the practical insights and everyday experiences from the perspectives of creative industries, cultural heritage, and education. Get inspiration for ‘meeting in the middle,’ cross-sector pathways for empowered participation in games and culture, and concrete steps to start or strengthen cross-sector collaboration and innovation.
14:00-14: 30: EPIC-WE Innovations: Cultural Game Jams, Games through/for Culture & Game-making as Value-sensitive Culture-making
Gain insight into the design, potentials, and value of the Cultural Game Jam format that invite youth to engage game-making as culture-making and create games through and for culture. Cultural Game Jams transforms audiences into participants that actively translate cultural heritage, values, and stories into playable cultural expressions, perspectives, and meaning-making. The result: a tested and freely available Cultural Game Jam model and kit that can be replicated, a format developed over 3 years for youth agency and empowered participation in culture through game-making, and more than 100 heritage- and value-sensitive game prototypes and featured games made by youth in collaboration with cultural institutions and creative industries.
14:30-14:45: Short Coffee Break
14:45-15:15: EPIC-WE Research: State-of-the-art & Key Research Results
Receive the research results from the Design-Based Research project, reporting on the project’s State-of-the-art and DBR interventions. The cross-hub research analysis and its provided answers to the project’s three research questions is presented: 1) How can games be understood as significant culture and cultural worlds in their own right while also shaping identities, society and our cultural world in beneficial ways? 2) How can cultural heritage institutions together with creative industries facilitate cultural game jams to enable youth's widened and empowered participation in culture and cultural heritage through culture- and value-sensitive game-making? 3)How might young people come to see themselves as cultural game-makers and value-creators through game jamming with European cultures and values? What is the potential value of cultural game jams and helix systems for culture, creative industries, youth, and European society?
15:15-16:00: EPIC-WE Partner Panel: Three Cultural Hubs & Twelve Cultural Game Jams – Experiences and Insights from Cross-sector Practices
The EPIC-WE Partner Panel gives lived insights from three Cultural Hubs and twelve Cultural Game Jams, sharing sector insights, reflecting on potential futures and gives voice to the cross-sector partnership model and events.
16:30-18:00: EPIC-WE Games through Culture Expo & Drinks reception
ARoS Art Museum: Experience first-hand what games based on cultural heritage look like. Meet some of the young cultural game jam teams behind the EPIC-WE Games through Culture and try their games yourself.
What does games based on cultural heritage look like? Meet some of the young cultural game jam teams behind the EPIC-WE Games through Culture and get a chance to play them yourself. Here you get to see what cultural-creative solutions young people from Portugal, The Netherlands and Denmark came up with when using cultural heritage as game-making material. Let’s celebrate the legacy of EPIC-WE together with games, art, and a glass of bubbles at ARoS!
09:00-12:00: EPIC-WE Conference Part 2 – Impact, Recommendations & Youth Empowerment
AIAS, Aarhus University: Learn about key recommendations for future practices, discover the project’s impact and policies, and engage with partners in research, cultural heritage, game industries, education, and youth that share and reflect on youth empowerment, key insights, potentials, and take-aways.
9:00-9:30: EPIC-WE Impact: Measuring What Matters - Mapping the Impact across the EPIC-WE Quadruple Helix Cultural Innovation Ecosystem
EPIC-WE Impact presents the project's comprehensive impact assessment, answering EPIC-WE’s impact questions with evidence from twelve Cultural Game Jams and three Cultural Hubs. The presentation shares measured outcomes—youth empowerment and engagement metrics, co-creation capacities, and games produced—alongside validated toolkits and governance templates for replication. Cross-hub analysis reveals scalable Quadruple-Helix partnership effects on cultural institutions, the games industry, and civic participation. It delivers answers to EPIC-WE’s impact questions, showcases specific outcomes - such as youth engagement metrics, co-creation capacities, and innovation in cultural heritage and game-making—and highlights the broader societal contributions of games, culture, and youth agency and empowerment. In conclusion, the presentation outlines how these impact findings translate into future practices and actionable recommendations for cultural institutions, creative industries, educators, and policymakers.
9:30-10:00: EPIC-WE Policy Roundtables & Briefs: Policy Pathways for Heritage-Games Cultural Partnerships and Youth Empowerment
This talk on EPIC‑WE Policy presents the project’s policy recommendations derived from its policy brief series and policy roundtables, offering actionable guidance for cultural institutions, creative industries, higher-education, and policymakers. It links empirical findings to the project’s published policy briefs and project deliverables. It shares with attendees how these policies translate EPIC-WE’s research and interventions into actionable policy outcomes and pathways to embed cultural innovation and youth agency into institutional and policy ecosystems.
10:00-10:30: Sharing the EPIC Innovations: The Adoptable and Adaptable Open & Online EPIC-WE Resource Site
With Lead on the EPIC-WE Resource Site, MEET, ItalyDiscussants: EPIC-WE Advisory Board Member Annakaisa Kultima, Finalnd & EPIC-WE Advisory Board Member Mary Flanagan
This presentation introduces the publicly accessible Resource Site of the EPIC‑WE project, showcasing core innovations: the Quadruple-Helix Cultural Hub model, the Cultural Game Jam Kit, sector interviews with representatives from youth, culture, games, and education, use cases from the three EPIC-WE cultural hubs, 100+ youth-produced cultural game prototypes and 8 featured games with culture created in collaboration between youth and game companies. These resources enable cultural institutions, creative industries, education, and youth partners to replicate Cultural Game Jams, taking up game-making as a form of culture-making, establish Cultural Hubs, and adopt youth-empowered co-creation in games and culture. Built on EPIC-WE’s tested and research-validated innovations, the EPIC-WE Resource Site supports future practices, cross-sector collaboration, capacity building, and youth as empowered co-creators with European values and heritage.
10:30-10:45: Short Coffee Break
10:45-11:30: EPIC-WE Panel on Empowerment: Youth as Partner & Empowered Participation with Games and Culture – Experiences and Insights from Cross-sector Partnerships
The EPIC-WE Panel on Empowerment shares the experiences from the heart of the project – the young people themselves – along with reflections and key insights from EPIC-WE sector partners that has engaged and collaborated with youth as partner in games, culture, and research. The panel focuses on the potentials, possibilities, and limitations of youth’s empowered participation with games and culture while reflecting on potential futures, recommendations, and legacies.
11:30-12:00: EPIC-WE in Conclusion: The project recommendations and futures
Sharing the overarching conclusions and recommendations on the macro, meso, and micro level of the project with the participants. Where did we end, where should we all go next? The presentation also includes opportunities for participants to share their reflections on the recommendations and opportunities for epic futures.
12:00-13:15: Lunch & Legacies, Walk to Filmby Aarhus
AIAS, Aarhus University: Catch your lunch while walking the EPIC-WE Wall of Legacies and sharing your perspectives in the EPIC-WE Policy Corner
EPIC-WE Wall of Legacies
Walk the timeline of the EPIC-WE and experience the project in pictures, stories, activities, deliverables, milestones, and key events.
EPIC-WE Policy Corner
Get involved and share your perspective at the EPIC-WE Policy Corner. Discuss with us and help to prioritise what us important for youth, education, creative industries, and cultural institutions when it comes to valuable policy futures and games & culture
13:15-16:00: Create the Legacy in the EPIC-WE Capacity Building Workshop
Filmby Aarhus: Join the workshop to learn from the experts and hear the stories from EPIC-WE youth as co-creators of European Culture. Get your hands on the toolkits and models and discuss cross-sector collaboration in culture, games, and education.
16:00-18:00: EPIC-WE Games for Culture Expo & Networking drinks reception
Filmby Aarhus: Continue the discussion, network with epic people & try the games for culture created by youth in Denmark, Netherlands, and Portugal
Can games be the voice of youth, and express their engagements, perspectives, and identities in relation to cultural themes and societal issues? Join us for the celebration of youths cultural-creative game-making and meet some of the game-makers themselves. Experience showcased prototype games for culture and with values from the Cultural Game Jams created by youth in Denmark, Netherlands, and Portugal – as well as the 8 featured games selected from these prototypes and developed in partnership between youth and game companies. Explore with us youth cultural-societal engagement an empowerment in the form of game-making.
