The U.S. Department of Education announced the winners of this year's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract awards. The SBIR funds are earmarked for small businesses using "cutting-edge R&D" to develop technologies to solve tough problems. Half of those contracts are game-related in some way - either they are for games or use gaming technology in a creative way.

Swedish game engine software developer Bitsquid announced this morning that it has received Vinnova research funding from the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems.

Video game industry pioneers and USC alumni Kevin Bachus and Chanel Summers have made a donation to the USC School of Cinematic Arts Interactive Media & Games Division (IMGD) to help establish The Bachus-Summers Fund for Innovation in Interactive Entertainment. The donation was revealed today by School of Cinematic Arts’ (SCA) Dean Elizabeth M. Daley and will be used to create a fund for student support to be awarded to those who show initiative in the fields of interactive and immersive media.

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) has opened submissions for the 2013 Into the Pixel art exhibit and the 2013 Randy Pausch and Mark Beaumont Scholarships. The Into the Pixel art exhibit features digital game art from developers around the world. Submissions for that close on April 17, with those selected being on display in a special gallery at the E3 Expo on June 11-13, followed by worldwide tours thereafter.

The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) sent out a reminder to students who would like to join "IGDA Scholars" at GDC in San Francisco later this year through its annual scholarships program. The registration for the 2013 IGDA Scholarships Program is January 11, so if you are interested in signing up you should head on over to igda.org/scholars now.

A prominent executive officer at Vancouver-based game developer Slant Six Games says that the Vancouver video game industry in danger of dramatically declining because of the lack of support from the government of British Columbia. CFO Lance Davis blames a lack of investment from the regional government since 2008. He also claims that this lack of support has led to 14,000 job cuts at various game studios in Vancouver. In June of this year Slant Six cut a quarter of its workforce temporarily.

The Entertainment Software Association Foundation (the charitable arm of the video game trade group the ESA) announced that it has awarded 30 would-be game developers scholarships for the 2012-2013 period. The ESA scholarships provide each recipient $3,000 that goes towards their education in fields such as 3D modeling, computer science, game art, animation, digital media, game design and visual effects.

Students from various colleges around the United States are helping to design a mobile game for the Department of Energy that promotes and encourages recruitment into the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

The students are taking part in a virtual internship to create the app, which is supposed to deliver with challenging puzzles tied to the theme of linking buildings with energy resources. The activities that players partake in are meant to give them a general idea of what the Department of Energy does.

Sony Online Entertainment has awarded Quinne Larsen of Northridge, California the 2012 Gamers in Real Life (G.I.R.L.) Scholarship. The scholarship awards Quinne $10,000 for tuition at California Institute of the Arts and a 10-week paid internship at SOE's headquarters in San Diego. While hundreds vied for the scholarship by submitting two pieces of original concept art inspired SOE's games PlanetSide 2 or EverQuest II and an essay discussing their views on women in the gaming industry, only one winner could be chosen.

Sony Online Entertainment is accepting applications and submissions today for its 2012 Gamers in Real Life (G.I.R.L.) Game Design Competition. In its fifth year, the G.I.R.L. program grants scholarships to four winners through the Game Design Competition.

UK racing game developer Eutechnyx has managed to secure £1.8 million from the UK government. The studio says that it will use the money to create up to 190 new jobs at the company. The firm's plan is to create a publishing operation for its new online racing game Auto Club Revolution, currently in closed beta and scheduled for release in 2012.

"We are exceptionally pleased that the Government has appreciated the unique opportunity that Auto Club Revolution presents in the world of online games," said Darren Jobling, Eutechnyx COO.

An Oklahoma research team led by communications professor Norah Dunbar and the Air Force Research laboratory have managed to score an unprecedented grant of $10.7 million USD to develop a video game to train intelligence officers in the government.

Dunbar, along with Scott Wilson, associate director for Innovative Technologies at the OU K20 Center, is overseeing the development of the game, which is called Intelligence Crisis: codename MACBETH (or "Mitigating Analysts Cognitive Bias by Eliminating Task Heuristics").

According to a Gamasutra report, the University of Abertay in Dundee, Scotland has invested £225,000 ($355,118 USD) in nine video game studios as part of its Abertay Prototype Fund. The fund is designed to support small start-up developers with staff costs related to new intellectual properties. The second round of funding awards £25,000 each to nine companies including Adamant Studios, Atomicom and Proper Games.

The EU Commission has handed out a 2.8 million Euro grant to four technology companies and two universities to develop the next generation of console hardware. Companies receiving a portion of the grant money include Edinburgh-based Codeplay, Cambridge-based Geomerics, AI company AiGameDev.com, and Greece-based Think Silicon. Germany's TU-Berlin and Sweden's Uppsala University, round out the group.

The Massachusetts Digital Games Institute (DiGI) has been awarded a five-year, $500,000 grant by the U.S. Department of Commerce. DiGI launched in April of this year with the help of grant money provided by Worcester's Becker College and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative. The large chunk of grant money will be used to help the game industry with such things as marketing, business development, and hiring employees in the state.

According to a Develop report, Canadian development studio Digital Extremes has been given $2.5 million to move its office and create more jobs. The money comes from the Canadian government. The "provincial grant" allows the studio to add 30 new employees to its 150 strong staff, and to build new game engine technology. Digital Extremes has been tapped to create the next The Darkness game - the first game was created Swedish studio Starbreeze.

A news story from IFPress also reports that the studio will invest $33 million of its own money into its new game engine.

"Right now we can’t hire people fast enough," studio founder James Schmalz said.

The Clymer Library in Pocono Pines is putting a $4,000 grant it received last year to good use. The grant came from the Federal Library Services and Technology Act through the Pennsylvania’s Office of Commonwealth Libraries. So what have they spent that money on? A Wii to get seniors engaged and active, among other things like large print books, extra seating and more comfortable furniture.

These items are part of the library's "Savvy Senior Space," which gives the elderly a reason to spend time at the library. At first the library's board members were not convinced that this was a good use of grant money - until one if its senior members, 71 year old Don Pitzer, tried out the Wii system for himself.

As part of an initiative to chronicle the health benefits of videogames, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has bestowed over $1.85 million in grants to nine research teams.

RWJF’s Health Games Research program, headquartered at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is backed by $8.25 million in funding from RWJF’s Pioneer Portfolio, which operates under the mantra of supporting “innovative projects that may lead to breakthrough improvements in the future of health and health care.” The grant winners announced today are part of a second round of funding.

Pioneer Portfolio Team Director Paul Tarini stated, “The pace of growth and innovation in digital games is incredible, and we see tremendous potential to design them to help people stay healthy or manage chronic conditions like diabetes or Parkinson’s disease.  However, we need to know more about what works and what does not—and why.”

Research teams were chosen from 185 total proposals and each was awarded between $100,000 and $300,00. The grant winners, and a short synopsis of their field of study, are:

• Children's Hospital of Philadelphia - Reward Circuitry, Autism and Games that Teach Social Perceptual Skills
 
• George Washington University - Active-Adventure: Investigating a Novel Exergaming Genre in Inner City School Physical Education Programs

• Georgetown University - Wii Active Exergame Intervention for Low-Income African-American Obese and Overweight Adolescents

• Long Island University - Dance Video Game Training and Falling in Parkinson’s Disease

• Michigan State University - Buddy Up! Harnessing Group Dynamics to Boost Motivation to Exercise

• Michigan State University - Short-Term and Long-Term Effectiveness of Exergames for Young Adults

• Teachers College, Columbia University - Lit: A Game Intervention for Nicotine Smokers

• University of California, San Francisco - A Video Game to Enhance Cognitive Health in Older Adults

• University of Southern California - Robot Motivator: Towards Adaptive Health Games for Productive Long-Term Interaction

Telefilm Canada, a cultural agency of the Canadian government, has provided grant funding to several independent game projects, reports Gamasutra.

Recent recipients include DeathSpank ($536,069), a game under development by Ron Gilbert of Monkey Island fame and upcoming XBLA title Fez ($73,682) from Polytron.

Other recipients include N+, Eets Chowdown and It's Emotional.

The grants are considered "repayable advances," which means that they must be repaid out of profits. However, if a game loses money there is no requirement to repay. Releasing a title with both English and French versions scores a 10% discount on repayment

The Ontario city of Sault Ste. Marie plans to support development of a speech therapy game to the tune of $50,000, according to The Sault Star.

The money from the city's economic development fund will be awarded to Algoma University, which is partnering with the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute to build a game studio devoted to developing health-oriented games.

Council member Steve Butland called the project "different and darn near cutting edge for Sault Ste. Marie."

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a $100,000 grant to a Norfolk University history professor to develop a video game which tells the tale of the Underground Railroad.

Prof. Cassandra Newby-Alexander said that the history of the Underground Railroad, a network which helped slaves escape from the South in pre-Civil War days, is not well understood:

The underground Railroad was a much more complex issue than it's been made out. When you push a person to a point where they have nothing to lose, that's when you create a formidable enemy. Ultimately, human beings are going to be free.

When you ask people to describe the Underground Railroad, they think of Harriet Tubman on foot, with a gun. Most slaves didn't escape that way. I don't want to dumb-down the game.

Newby-Alexander is working with a local playwright to create a script for the game, which is expected for PC in 2011.

Via: Kotaku