The newly-launched LAW-GAME project is expected to revolutionize the digital gamification methods and elevate the experiential training of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and first responders through the utilisation of emerging technologies. The 3-year project, supported by the EU’s Horizon 2020 Programme, brings together 19 partners from 11 European countries in a common goal: to train LEAs in developing advanced skills and competencies for intelligence crime analysis and illegal acts prediction.

LAW-GAME will develop and design a training system based on serious games (SGs), virtual reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted procedures and will offer a distinct approach to the development of LEAs core competencies within the project’s game realm. The project will develop an advanced learning experience to train LEAs and measure their proficiency in conducting forensic examination, effective questioning and recognizing and mitigating potential terrorist attacks.

Over the last few years, SGs are gaining an ever-increasing interest in education and training. Exploiting the latest simulation and visualisation technologies, SGs are able to contextualise the user’s experience in challenging, realistic environments, supporting situated cognition. The integration of SGs in law enforcement processes and methods allows for the creation of an interactive and visually rich environment within which end-users can explore complex problem spaces in a replica of the real world.

The project’s end-users will engage in a learning experience to develop key competencies needed for successfully operating within diverse and distributed teams; an important skill when collaborating in various cross-organisational and international cooperation situations. The project partners will collaborate to create real-life simulations utilising AI and VR for practitioners in four focus areas including crime scene investigation, interrogation and negotiation, terrorism prediction, vehicle dynamics and car accident analysis.

Through active collaboration with LEAs, LAW-GAME will aim to identify the list of necessary skills and knowledge required to be cultivated by end-users whilst highlighting the areas where training capability gaps need to be bridged. Through the project, the creation of engaging and immersive training in a virtual environment will be achieved, maximising the end-users attention and delivering demonstrably more effective learning outcomes than traditional teaching models.

The Consortium has kicked-off its operations with the official Kick-Off Meeting of the project that took place on 6th & 7th September 2021, welcoming over 60 participants.

The LAW-GAME Consortium is comprised of 19 partners coming from 11 European countries, with collaborative workings well underway to develop the pilot technologies, demonstrate the use cases and deliver an impactful solution. Members of the Consortium include key end users such as the Hellenic Police, the Romanian Protection and Guard Service, the State Protection and Guard Service of the Republic of Moldova, the Forensic Science Center of Lithuania and the Police Force of the Basque Country. The end users will have the opportunity to work closely with the Consortium and offer their expert insights to design the project use cases and application scenarios, while they will also actively contribute to the refinement of the needs and requirements for practitioners in the LAW-GAME focus areas. End users will also be able to participate in the interactive mini-games and virtual reality experiences to be developed as part of the project.

Helvia is the leader in the development of interactive chatbots that support the use cases of the project. Helvia has in-depth experience in the development of chatbots with conversational AI and has deployed a variety of chatbot solutions for well-known companies and organizations. Using Helvia Bot Framework, Helvia will build interactive conversational characters for training experiences that take place in gaming and VR environments. Moreover, building on Helvia Portal+ no-code suite for designing interactive experiences, Helvia will develop an authoring tool for training scenarios.

Website: https://lawgame-project.eu/

LAW-GAME project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101021714. Content reflects only the authors’ view and European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.