Research award joy for Trust and partners involved in pioneering computer game link-up
A pioneering partnership involving Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridge Neuroscience and award-winning computer game developer Ninja Theory has led to a prestigious research award.
The three organisations have been crowned the winners in the Collaboration category at the Cambridge Awards for Research Impact and Engagement and will receive a plaque in recognition.
These awards recognise “outstanding achievement, innovation and creativity in devising and implementing ambitious engagement and impact plans which have the potential to create significant economic, social and cultural impact from, and engagement with, research”.
Ninja Theory, the Cambridge-based BAFTA award-winning video game developer and part of Xbox Game Studios, worked with staff and students from CPFT’s RCE Wellbeing Hub and Cambridge Neuroscience to create the best-selling Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.
The protagonist, Senua, has psychosis, and the Trust’s staff and those with lived experience of the condition, offered expert advice to the creative team during development of the title. The game garnered global acclaim, earning numerous awards, including five BAFTAs in 2018.
Professor Paul Fletcher, who has an honorary psychiatry contract with CPFT and is Professor of Health Neuroscience in the Department of Psychiatry at University of Cambridge, has led the collaboration between CPFT and Ninja Theory since 2014.
He said: “This is great recognition of a wonderful collaboration. It has been one of the real pleasures and privileges of my career to work with the RCE Wellbeing Hub and with the team at Ninja Theory. Over the 10 years of our collaboration, it has repeatedly shown me the value and positive impact of genuine co-production.”
CPFT’s Associate Director of Inclusion, Sharon Gilfoyle, who has been involved since the conception of the partnership, said: “We are extremely proud of the collaboration which has seen it develop from a small initiative to what it is now. I am really proud of the RCE Wellbeing team for sharing their lived experience and to our colleague Dr Paul Fletcher, for his initial connection and foresight in this amazing partnership, it has been fantastic to see it develop and grow.”
Dom Matthews, studio head of Ninja Theory, added: 'I feel immense pride that our special collaboration has been recognised in this way. As a video game studio, it is highly unusual to be recognised outside of our own industry, and so this award is something we hold in very high regard.”
Photo: Prof Paul Fletcher (right) with RCE Wellbeing Hub Manager Emma Taylor and CPFT Peer Support Worker Eddy Maile pictured last year with Ninja Theory at a global panel event before the launch of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, the sequel to Hellblade.
