The Eccles School’s Sorenson Center for Discovery & Innovation is partnering with Chung-ang University to create a digital gaming and engagement research and development center at the U. campus in Songdo, South Korea.  The center will also bring its gaming expertise to the game-loving culture of South Korea by creating the first-ever joint international MBA and Master’s of Entertainment Arts and Engineering degree.

Chung-ang University led a delegation of Korean VIPs, including Dr. Jin-yee Shin, a member of the South Korean National Assembly, to participate in this year’s Games4Health Challenge, where students from two Korean universities participated with others students from around the world. Dr. Youngjeen Choe, vice president of international affairs at Chung-Ang University, led this delegation in their visit to the U. campus to sign an agreement with U. President David Pershing to create the gaming center in South Korea.

The center will teach graduate courses on digital gaming from both the technical and business perspectives, including game development and innovative gaming business model strategies. It will also offer executive education courses in business, innovation and entrepreneurship that focus heavily on digital engagement and digital business model innovations.

This fall, the U. will become the first university in the world to offer a joint MBA/MS EAE here in the U.S. The new Korean center also will offer the degree, making it the first international MBA/MS EAE degree.

In addition, the center will conduct academic research focused on neurogaming in order to better understand how digital gaming and digital engagement impacts our mental, emotional and physical behaviors and physiology.

“We will use fMRI [Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging] technology to understand the impact of digital games and technology on our brains and minds similar to how neuromarketing research does this to understand how to improve marketing campaigns and messages,” said Chris Wasden, executive director of the Sorenson Center for Discovery & Innovation. “Through novel uses of fMRI, we will be able to see how digital games engage various areas of the brain, and by so doing can identify which games create various types of social, emotional, mental and physical impacts, benefits and damage on people.”