For participants

INFORMATION SHEET AND PRIVACY NOTICE

INFORMATION SHEET: PEGASUS – Promoting equity and game cultural sustainability in Finland

Running during the years 2024-2025, Project PEGASUS will aim to create more sustainable game culture environments by bringing together key actors of Finnish game industry, gaming event organisers, and player and esports organisations, to develop new collaborative methods for addressing current diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) challenges in Finnish game culture. As part of the project, we will conduct research into the DEI-challenges and successes in the industry to get a comprehensive picture of the current situation.

The project will organise co-design workshops that will chart central DEI-challenges and best practices in the field. This data will then be used to collaboratively build new solutions, which will be piloted in different game culture environments and communities, and reiterated based on participant feedback. The project’s research materials will include participants’ workshop output materials, workshop observation materials (photos, video, sound, and notes), feedback on the pilots, and game industry DEI-documents.

The project will generate three key outcomes: 1) actionable DEI guidelines for best practices, co-created with community and industry representatives; 2) a tested workshop-based co-design method for creating more culturally sustainable new models of operation; and 3) peer-reviewed publications that expand the current state-of-the-art understanding of how DEI and cultural sustainability are defined, experienced, and promoted in the context of gaming.

All results of the study will be published as openly available publications.

All companies, organisations, and communities developing games, organising groups or events centred around games or esports activities, or otherwise actively involved in Finnish game culture are welcome to participate in the research project.

Project research team

Professor Olli Sotamaa, +358 504 201 472, olli.sotamaa@tuni.fi

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Usva Friman, +358 50 4624 795, usva.friman@tuni.fi

Doctoral Researcher Taina Myöhänen, taina.myohanen@tuni.fi

Doctoral Researcher Kalle Laakso, +358 40 546 5982, kalle.laakso@tuni.fi

Researcher Essi Taino, +358 50 437 2797, essi.taino@tuni.fi

Professor Frans Mäyrä, +358 503 367 650, frans.mayra@tuni.fi

Research Ethics and Data Protection

All research activities are conducted following The Finnish Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, the principle of informed consent, and data protection guidelines. Participation in the study is voluntary and participants have the right to withdraw from the study. Information shared by the participants is treated confidentially and following the Tampere University data protection guidelines, Finnish Data Protection Act, and GDPR. Participants can choose if they will participate using their own name or pseudonymously. Participants have the right to allow or deny continuous use and archiving of the material they have offered for the study.

The Privacy Notice of the study is available below.

Contact details

Professor Olli Sotamaa (Principal Investigator), +358 504 201 472, olli.sotamaa@tuni.fi
Postdoctoral Research Fellow Usva Friman, +358 50 4624 795, usva.friman@tuni.fi

We are happy to answer all questions regarding the study!

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PRIVACY NOTICE

1. Title, description and duration of research

The research project “PEGASUS” aims to steer Finnish game culture towards more sustainable cultural, social, and economic growth by assessing current DEI challenges and creating new collaborative methods to address them. The project will generate three key outcomes: 1) actionable DEI guidelines for best practices, co-created with community and industry representatives; 2) a tested workshop-based co-design method for creating more culturally sustainable new models of operation; and 3) peer-reviewed publications that expand the current state-of-the-art understanding of how DEI and cultural sustainability are defined, experienced, and promoted in the context of gaming.

The research activities will be conducted in the years 2024–2025 during the year between April 2024 and April 2025. Data processing may continue until December 2026 due to publishing and data archiving schedules.

2. Data controller

Tampere University Foundation sr
33014 Tampere University
Kalevantie 4, 33100 Tampere
Business ID: 2844561-8

Tampere University Data Protection Officer: dpo@tuni.fi

3. Contact persons regarding the research registry

Professor Olli Sotamaa
Pinni B, Kanslerinrinne 1, PL 300, 33014 Tampereen yliopisto
+358 50 420 1472
olli.sotamaa@tuni.fi

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Usva Friman
Pinni B, Kanslerinrinne 1, PL 300, 33014 Tampereen yliopisto
+358 50 4624 795
usva.friman@tuni.fi

4. Researchers

Research and personal information will be processed by the PEGASUS-project’s research team:

Professor Olli Sotamaa, +358 504 201 472, olli.sotamaa@tuni.fi

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Usva Friman, +358 50 4624 795, usva.friman@tuni.fi

Doctoral Researcher Taina Myöhänen, taina.myohanen@tuni.fi

Doctoral Researcher Kalle Laakso, +358 40 546 5982, kalle.laakso@tuni.fi

Researcher Essi Taino, +358 50 437 2797, essi.taino@tuni.fi

Professor Frans Mäyrä, +358 503 367 650, frans.mayra@tuni.fi

5. Content of research records

The following personal data categories will be processed in the project: participant names, contact information (email addresses), photos, video, voice, and organisational positions.

6. Sources of personal data

Personal data will be collected from: questionnaires (Microsoft Forms), observation materials (notes, photos, videos), personal communication (through email), and documents shared by the participating organisations (e.g. guidelines or Codes of Conduct).

7. Purpose of processing personal data

The purpose of processing personal data is scientific research. Processing personal data is required to collect the necessary research material from representatives of Finnish game industry and game culture, and to keep them informed of the research project’s progress. Personal data is collected during co-design-based workshops and during the following pilot-phase where the workshop results are implemented in practice.

8. Lawful basis for processing personal data

The lawful basis for processing under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, Article 6 Paragraph 1, and the Personal Data Act, Section 4: Public interest, scientific research purposes.

9. Sensitive personal data

The research focuses on the needs of game industry and game culture organisations and communities, therefore it will not focus on collecting single individuals’ sensitive personal data. The researchers will not initiate discussions regarding any sensitive aspects of participants’ personal identities or backgrounds. However, diversity, equity, and inclusion are one of the project’s research focus areas, so it is possible that some participants will feel the need to share their personal experiences openly. These experiences can be related to their gender identity, sexual orientation, health diagnosis, or racial or ethnic origin. In such cases, the data will be processed with special care, and the participants will be given the opportunity to check how the information will be presented in the study before the manuscript will be submitted for publication.

10. Lawful basis for processing of sensitive personal data

The lawful basis for processing under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, Article 9 (special categories of personal data), and the Personal Data Act, Sections 6 and 7: The processing activities are conducted for the purpose of scientific research in the public interest.

11. Data protection principles and practices

All participants will participate in the study pseudonymously. This means that all directly identifiable data will be removed from any research publications.

Research materials will be produced and pseudonymised by the project researchers, and they will not be shared with anyone outside of the research team. Participants will be offered an opportunity to check any pseudonymised written references to them in article manuscripts before they are sent into publication process. Participants will also be offered an opportunity to check any photos or screen captures taken of them and decide if they can be used in publications and presentations related to the project.

Research material will be stored on the project researchers’ password protected personal work computers in locked office rooms for the duration of the project. Any materials that do not contain any sensitive personal data will be also stored on the secure cloud drive (Microsoft OneDrive) provided by Tampere University, protected by usernames, passwords, and multi-factor authentication.

12. Processing of personal data after the research project has been concluded

Participants have the right to allow or deny continuous use and archiving of the material they have offered for the study. If a participant wishes to withdraw from the study at any point, any material they have provided will be destroyed immediately.

13. Data subjects’ rights and possible restriction thereof

Data subjects have the following rights under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):

Right of access:

- Data subjects are entitled to find out what information the University holds about them or to receive confirmation that their personal data is not processed by the University.

Right to rectification:

- Data subjects have the right to have any incorrect, inaccurate or incomplete personal details held by the University revised or supplemented without undue delay. In addition, data subjects are entitled to have any unnecessary personal data deleted from the University’s systems.

Right to erasure:

- In exceptional circumstances, data subjects have the right to have their personal data erased from the Data Controller’s records (‘right to be forgotten’).

Right to restrict processing:

- In certain circumstances, data subjects have the right to request the University to restrict processing their personal data until the accuracy of their data, or the basis for processing their data, has been appropriately reviewed and potentially revised or supplemented.

Right to object

- In certain circumstances, data subjects may at any time object to the processing of their personal data for compelling personal reasons.

Right to data portability:

- Data subjects have the right to obtain a copy of the personal data that they have submitted to the University in a commonly used, machine-readable format and transfer the data to another Data Controller.

Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority:

- Data subjects have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority in their permanent place of residence or place of work, if they consider the processing of their personal data to violate the provisions of the GDPR (EU 2016/679). In addition, data subjects may follow other administrative procedures to appeal against a decision made by a supervisory authority or seek a judicial remedy.

Contact information:

Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman
Street address: Lintulahdenkuja 4, 00530 Helsinki, Finland
Postal address: PO Box 800, FI-00531 Helsinki, Finland
Switchboard: tel. +358 29 56 66700
Fax: +358 29 56 66735
Email address: tietosuoja@om.fi

The Data Controller follows a GDPR-compliant procedure for responding to subject access requests.