St.Gallen Strategy Days

Shape the Future of European Politics - A Hands-On Simulation for Students and Young Professionals

The St. Gallen Strategy Days, hosted by SQUARE, is an interactive two-day simulation that immerses students and young professionals into the heart of Europe's geopolitical and economic challenges.

It's a collaborative and competitive environment where over 150 participants form teams as governments, international organizations, and private sector entities to tackle current political, economic, defense, energy, and climate issues through a realistic simulation. With guidance from experts, attendees gain practical skills in strategy, leadership, and negotiation, enhancing their professional and academic capabilities while developing critical thinking and decision-making skills.

 

48

hours

150+

students and young professionals

30-40

teams representing countries, international organizations and private companies

1

realistic simulation

 

What is Serious Gaming?

The methodology of serious gaming involves creating engaging and interactive environments that simulate real-world challenges, fostering collaboration and strategic thinking while providing a safe space for participants to experiment and learn. At the St.Gallen Strategy Days, participants each receive a role and are encouraged to dress the part! The learning objectives are often focused on enhancing practical skills that are relevant to navigating and managing complex and uncertain scenarios in various professional contexts​​​​.By adopting the broader concept of play, serious games promote active learning, allowing both educators and learners to develop and test knowledge and skills in a dynamic yet controlled environment. 

St.Gallen Serious Gaming Handbook

This guide covers the rationale behind using serious games, the process of designing and executing them, and the various applications in different contexts, including military, business, and academic settings.

Impressions

Recap 2023

Participant stories

«Its super nice to see how engaged everyone is and working together. At the same time, I realised how difficult it is to come to an agreement and that everyone also gets the same information.»
Nilani Sunthar, Student
«I gained a lot of insight into how diplomacy works, how the interactions between multinationals and governments work. It was also quite interesting to look into the perspective of companies, since the role of companies is usually underestimated.»
Boas Kaiser, Student
«Its quite fun, cause you can have a blank card, especially if you are like a business you can go into any direction. Its good value, the whole building is reserved, very well organised.»
Matthieu Dupraz, Student

Organizers

Dr. Lucia Görkeexpand_less

Lucia Görke is the Global Head of People Analytics at Novelis. Previously she worked for various international companies in the data science space such as Nestlé and Allianz SE. Lucia also worked as a consultant in financial services. She holds a PhD from the University of Konstanz/New York University (NYU). Beyond her role at Novelis Lucia lectures at the University of St.Gallen at executive and bachelor level. Her expertise lies in leadership, crisis leadership and people data science and organisational behaviour.

Diederik Stolkexpand_less

Diederik is the Director of Goldsworthy, Stolk & Associates Ltd. GS&A and an expert in modeling and simulation for NATO's Civil Military Interaction (CIMIC) Center of Excellence. He co-founded the Utrecht Institute for Conflict and Crisis Simulation and gives guest lectures on serious gaming at universities. He will soon be a European board member for Commit Global, an NGO focused on using technology for social good. GS&A develops and facilitates military games and exercises for European governments on topics such as conflict, AI, and command & control.

Tim Goudriaanexpand_less

Tim Goudriaan runs the educational platform Teachmehowtodothat and is co-founder of the Utrecht Institute for Crisis and Conflict Simulation. He serves on the board of gaming and simulation association SAGANET, and writes about serious gaming for media such as PAXSIMS and Homo Ludens. Other than games, Tim builds eLearning modules and gives AItrainings that focus on security, business and education. He specializes in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and East Asia. He has taught on war games and conflict simulations at Utrecht University and University College Utrecht for several years.

north