"Academia Unbound" is designed to:
- highlight the importance of IDEA in academic settings.
- think critically about systemic challenges and collaborative solutions.
- foster empathy by experiencing the roles and challenges of different academic professionals.
"Academia Unbound" is a cooperative strategy board game designed to raise awareness about inclusivity, diversity, equity, and accountability within the academic world. Players take on the roles of various academic professionals such as students, PhDs, assistant professors, full professors, and other researchers, each with unique traits and hidden agendas. The primary objective is to work together to increase the university's ranking by meeting specific scientific goals and inclusivity and accountability goals. At the end of each round, the ranking drops if the goals are not met. If it drops too low, game over. We could also limit the game to 10 rounds or so.
- Game Board: represents the university with various departments, research labs, and administrative offices. We could also build a lab or a group.
- Character Cards: each player receives a character card with four traits and a hidden agenda.
- Event Cards: trigger various challenges and opportunities each round. We could use the speed-survey game here.
- Goal Cards: display 2 categories of goals: science-related and IDEA-related for each round.
- Resource Tokens: represent resources like funding, research papers, equipment, ...
- Ranking Tracker: shows the current ranking of the university, which can go up or down based on the outcomes of each round.
Each character has four traits rated on a scale (check "Betrayal on the house on the hill" characters cards):
- Knowledge: represents the academic and research expertise of the character.
- Sanity: measures the mental well-being and resilience of the character.
- Strength: indicates the physical tiredness of the character.
- Concentration: reflects the ability to focus and manage time effectively.
Hidden Agendas
Each character has a hidden agenda, which can align with or diverge from the global goal. Examples include:
- Advocate for increased diversity in hiring.
- Promote student mental health initiatives.
- Secure a major research grant.
- Publish 10 groundbreaking(?) paper.
Characters can choose to reveal their hidden agendas to collaborate more effectively or keep them secret for personal strategy.
The game ends after a predetermined number of rounds or when the university ranking reaches the top or bottom of the scale. Players win if the university ranking significantly improves and key inclusivity and accountability milestones are achieved. They lose if the ranking falls too low or critical goals are consistently not met.