ZeMKI Research Report 2024/2025

The year 2025 was marked by the 20th anniversary of ZeMKI. We are all very proud of our shared history, the many projects we have realized together, the successes, defeats, big celebrations, and small dramas. We also enjoyed a wonderful 20th anniversary conference, which was attended not only by many alumni, but also by many national and international guests who celebrated with us. The following pages of this research report document all of this from different perspectives, which is why we do not want to add anything more in this editorial, but rather draw attention to three smaller, yet remarkable highlights of the year 2025 so that they are not overlooked. 

First of all, there are the many international scholars who came to ZeMKI this year. For example, we hosted international early-career researchers such as Guofei Gao from Shanghai (People’s Republic of China), Benedetta Ciampoli from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan), and Vish Padinjaredath Suresh from Queensland University of Technology (Australia). In addition, our ZeMKI Research Fellowship is very helpful – we were able to select five guest researchers from 155 applications in 2025: Dr. Berber Hagedoorn from the University of Groningen, Prof. Dr. Andrea L. Guzman from Northern Illinois University (USA), Prof. Dr. Eugenia Siapera from University College Dublin (Ireland), Prof. Dr. Joyojeet Pal from the University of Michigan (USA), and Prof. Dr. Lissa Holloway-Attaway from the University of Skövde (Sweden). Prof. Dr. Mike Schäfer (University of Zurich), Dr. Dennis Frieß (University of Düsseldorf), Prof. Dr. Nathan Schneider (University of Colorado Boulder, USA), Dr. Johannes Bennke (Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf), and Prof. Dr. Taina Bucher (University of Oslo) were guest speakers at the ComAI Lectures during 2025.

There have also been other changes: Prof. Dr. Anne Kaun (Södertörn University) has been appointed as a new member of our Scientific Advisory Board. For years, the members of this important committee have supported us with advice, guidance, and suggestions. We would like to express our sincere thanks to Prof. Dr. Frank Esser (University of Zurich), Prof. Dr. Bernhard Groß (University of Jena), Prof. Dr. Matthias Karmasin (University of Klagenfurt), Prof. Dr. Felicitas Macgilchrist (University of Oldenburg), and Prof. Dr. Thorsten Quandt (University of Münster)! We are very pleased about the continuous support and assistance and that the advisory board continues to grow.

We are also busy with renovation work at ZeMKI. On the initiative of Kerstin Radde-Antweiler, Christian Schwarzenegger, and Karsten D. Wolf, a new gaming studio is being built, which will be inaugurated in 2026 and will further strengthen the corresponding research focus. We will report more as soon as it opens. Further renovations are also planned for 2026: the old media studio is to be converted into a co-working area, and there are also plans to improve the outdoor area of ZeMKI beyond our “parking lot parties.”

The 2024 /2025 research report is available here.