SIG 28 Conference 2026

The theme of the 2026 conference is Playful Worlds: Play, Creativity, and Learning Across Analogue and Digital Spaces The conference will take place from Wednesday, 8th July to Friday, 10th July 2026, at the Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, in Reggio Emilia, Italy. The conference will be in English.

Play is the foundation of creativity, learning, and innovation. This conference explores the many ways in which play and creativity intersect in education and society. We will consider the multiple forms of play and creativity, from hands-on games to immersive digital experiences, and how they shape education, collaboration, and imagination in a connected world.

We live in a time when boundaries between the physical and the digital, the individual and the collective, are increasingly fluid. These shifts offer new possibilities and challenges for understanding and supporting playful, creative learning and development. We welcome researchers, educators, professionals, and policymakers to exchange findings, experiences, and reflections on these issues.

We especially invite relevant contributions that explore, among other things:

• the role of play and/or creativity across different contexts, media, and disciplines, including (but not limited to) formal and informal learning, creative processes in art and design, creative problem-solving and digital culture;
• how creativity and/or play drive innovation in education, entrepreneurship, and workplace learning;
• creative/playful approaches to education and skills development;
• game-based learning, digital or analogue

While the conference theme focuses on the intersection of play, creativity, and learning across analogue and digital spaces, we warmly welcome submissions that address other aspects of play and/or creativity, even if they are not explicitly captured in the title.

By bringing together a wide spectrum of research and practice, this conference aims to inspire new ideas and collaborations. We look forward to meeting with you in Reggio Emilia to share ideas, research, and inspiration on the many forms and meanings of play and creativity in contemporary life.

Finally, as the conference will take place in Reggio Emilia, we will learn and explore research on play and creativity together with Fondazione Reggio Children-Centro Loris Malaguzzi (Reggio Children Foundation-Loris Malaguzzi Centre). Fondazione Reggio Children is a not for profit organisation, established in 2011 in Reggio Emilia, the city that, immediately after the Second World War, has given birth to the Reggio Emilia Approach®, the educational approach based on the idea of children and human beings as holders of rights and potentials.

Drawing on years of pedagogical research conducted by Fondazione Reggio Children, they promote a playful approach to learning as a cultural and relational process through which children and adults co-construct knowledge. Play and playfulness are framed as a way of thinking, researching, and learning that unfolds through exploration, imagination, hypothesis-building, and negotiation with others and with materials. Their research perspective emphasises playfulness as a disposition that sustains curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking across learning contexts.

Within this ongoing research, learning environments are designed to invite inquiry and experimentation; educators work collaboratively to observe, document, and interpret learning processes; and pedagogical documentation functions as both a research tool and a means for dialogue among children, educators, families, and the wider community - www.frchildren.org