We want professionals to know the rules for ethical behavior, but more importantly, to behave ethically. In the world of research, this involves, for example, following human research rules, disclosing conflicts of interests, managing data responsibly, and treating staff and trainees respectfully. How do we motivate and empower researchers to behave ethically when rule-following is time-consuming, policies are often complex and changing, cutting corners can be rewarded, and good work increasingly requires cooperation from team members? This talk will draw from 13 years of experience leading the Professionalism and Integrity in Research Program (PI Program), which has offered training to researchers from more than 70 institutions who have struggled with research integrity or compliance. It will also draw on the speaker’s research and educational outcome assessment efforts over the past 20 years. A unifying theme across these efforts is the centrality of engaging researchers as human beings with busy lives, unique personalities, personal priorities, and a strong need for respect. While the education of research professionals will be used as a data-informed example, the key lessons shared in this talk are transferable to the education of professionals of all kinds.

Imagine a classroom where students don’t just discuss ethical dilemmas. They experience them, make difficult decisions under uncertainty and experience possible consequences. And they do all of this in a safe space, which allows for graceful failure, and where nobody gets harmed (Katsarov 2023). Serious moral games transform ethics education from passive detachment to active engagement, immersing learners in complex, real-world scenarios where their choices matter.

A growing body of research confirms that serious games are powerful tools for ethics education. Systematic reviews and empirical studies show that serious games foster deeper understanding, critical thinking, and moral reasoning by placing learners in interactive, dilemma-rich environments (Katsarov et al. 2022). For example, simulation games designed for business and research ethics have been shown to significantly improve students’ ethical decision-making skills and their ability to analyze and synthesize complex issues (Tanner et al. 2022, Melcer et al. 2020). Moreover, serious games are uniquely suited to address the “wickedness” of ethical problems—those that are inconclusive, complex, and sometimes contradictory. Unlike traditional case studies, games can model the ambiguity and nuance of real ethical challenges, prompting learners to reflect, debate, and adapt their values in context (Nardo & Gaydos 2021, Katsarov et al. 2024).

Let’s experience this together. In my interactive keynote, I’ll demonstrate how these games can revolutionize ethics courses, share the scientific evidence behind their effectiveness, and offer practical lessons for selecting, developing, and using serious games in your teaching.

Dr Johannes Katsarov is an award-winning educational scientist and serious game designer at Leuphana University in Lueneburg, who specializes on ethics education and moral psychology. He promotes game-based education, teaches ethics and educational game design, and develops analogue and digital games. So far, he has developed four serious moral games on AI, finance, medicine, and social-media marketing. At Leuphana, he supports teachers of diverse disciplines in adopting and developing analogue and digital games for use in their classrooms with a large team.

Johannes’ principal research interests are to identify teaching mechanisms and strategies that effectively facilitate the development of responsible attitudes and competences for moral agency and to understand how game-based learning can achieve optimal outcomes. His thesis on “Virtuous Play - Promoting Moral Sensitivity with Digital Games” received the German Simulation Gaming Award in 2023 for the best doctoral dissertation and the Kuhmerker Dissertation Award of 2024 from the Association for Moral Education. His game “CO-BOLD” on the ethics of artificial intelligence received the AACSB Award “Innovations that Inspire” in 2023.