Significant funding from Business Finland for Research into Fun and Engagement

Business Finland has granted funding for a research project by the Universities of Turku and Jyväskylä entitled FUNMERSIVE – Transformative and scalable customer engagement through immersive fun. The funding was granted for a co-innovation joint project, with the University of Jyväskylä's share of the project amounting to €885,920. The total budget for the project is €1,107,400, of which the university's own funding contribution is €221,480.

Published

10.2.2026

This text is translated using DeepL.

Funmersive is a unique combination of research and business expertise. In addition to universities, five companies are involved in the funded project: MinnaLearn, Rockway, Seppo, Eduten, and LeanLab, which are participating in the research with their own Business Finland-funded RDI projects.

Fun as a factor that enhances user experience

The Funmersive project creates new science-based service design solutions for education and entertainment, in which immersive fun acts as a key factor in enhancing the user experience. Current digital services are not sufficient to meet the diverse needs of customers, and superficially entertaining solutions can lead to short-term engagement.

The project's research challenges the notion of fun as a momentary emotional reaction and starts from the premise that fun experiences can promote intrinsic motivation, meaningfulness and long-term engagement. "In this project, we take fun seriously: we see it as having a positive impact not only on the customer experience but also on learning, well-being and long-term engagement with the service," comments Kai Tuuri, Senior Researcher leading the project at the University of Jyväskylä.

The University of Jyväskylä brings to the joint project its multidisciplinary expertise in game research, educational sciences and human-technology interaction. The research group, which operates within the Departments of Music, Art and Culture Studies and Education, focuses in particular on experiential and pedagogical design aspects in the context of playfulness and learning.

Funmersive collaborates with LearnDigi, one of the University of Jyväskylä's profiling areas funded by the Academy of Finland. LearnDigi aims to examine ways in which technologies are used to support learning and knowledge construction, and the impacts of increasing digitalization on learning and interaction.