Inside Alam Santi's Research Partnership with BRIN

In May 2024, Alam Santi signed a formal research partnership with BRIN, Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency, specifically with its Population Research Centre under the Social Sciences and Humanities research organisation.

The partnership centres on a joint study into the effectiveness of innovative education materials for building community resilience to the impacts of climate change, using Ecogames' work as the subject of that research.

The agreement followed a workshop held at the Alam Santi office in Bali, bringing together the Alam Santi consulting team, senior BRIN researchers and department leads, and Dr. Mohamad Zaini Alif, an Indonesian academic. Dr Zaini is widely referred to in Indonesia as the "father of traditional games" (Bapak Permainan Tradisional Indonesia); in 2003, he founded Komunitas Hong, a national center for the preservation of Indonesia's rich heritage of folk toys and games.

Sessions included formal presentations walking BRIN through what Ecogames does and why. They also featured plenty of hands-on experience, with the researchers gathering around Ecogames' giant games on the office floor.

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Under the MOU that was generated as a direct output of the event, Alam Santi projects will coordinate research activities and provide the field access needed to gather data, while BRIN is commited to supplying research expertise: designing the study methodology, overseeing data collection, and producing the analysis.

The study uses data gathered from across Indonesia and covers the full research cycle, from designing the study and securing ethical clearance, through data collection and analysis, to a final report. The partnership runs for three years, through May 2027, with findings intended to inform how Ecogames' programmes are evaluated and refined going forward.

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For Alam Santi, this partnership is an independent, national-level validation of our approach built on the ground over decades of fieldwork. It is a landmark opportunity to gather formal evidence that gamified education can build lasting resilience to climate change, assessed by one of Indonesia's leading research institutions rather than asserted by us alone.

If you're a researcher, funder, or government partner interested in the evidence base behind play-based climate education, get in touch. We're glad to explore strategic partnerships and to share what the study finds as the work develops.