MAD ABOUT PANDAS UG

Their core work

Mad About Pandas is a Berlin-based game development and gamification SME that applies interactive game technologies to learning and training challenges. Their H2020 work shows a clear specialization in designing game mechanics that drive behavioral and educational outcomes — first for youth social inclusion, then for professional skills development in agriculture. They join research consortia as a technical contributor, bringing game design and development capability that larger academic or industrial partners typically lack in-house. As a small studio, they are well-suited to rapid prototyping of game-based training tools within applied research projects.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their two projects trace a direct line from consumer-facing educational gaming (youth, social inclusion, academic achievement) toward B2B professional training in specialized industry sectors. The move from ProsocialLearn to GATES represents a maturation from broad educational applications to sector-specific vocational tools, where the client is an employer or training institution rather than a school. With no keyword metadata available, the full depth of this evolution cannot be confirmed, but the project titles alone indicate a deliberate shift toward applied, professional-market use cases.

Mad About Pandas appears to be moving from educational gaming for general audiences toward B2B game-based training tools for specific industry verticals — a trajectory that positions them for partnerships with agricultural bodies, workforce training organizations, or vocational platforms.

How they like to work

Mad About Pandas has participated in both of their H2020 projects as a partner, never as coordinator, which is consistent with a small studio that contributes specialized technical capability rather than leading consortia. Their 16 unique partners across only 2 projects suggest they work within mid-to-large consortia, likely alongside universities and domain-expert organizations who provide the research framing while Mad About Pandas delivers the game technology layer. This makes them a reliable specialist contributor in mixed academic-industry consortia.

They have built connections with 16 unique partners across 9 countries through just 2 projects, indicating broad consortium exposure relative to their project volume. Their European reach spans likely a mix of research institutions and industry partners given the Innovation Action funding scheme of both projects.

What sets them apart

Mad About Pandas fills a narrow but valuable niche: they are game developers who understand EU research project requirements and can translate complex behavioral or professional training objectives into functional game experiences. Few game studios engage with H2020 consortia, which makes them unusual in the research ecosystem. For a consortium building a training platform or behavior-change application, they offer a ready-made game technology partner with demonstrated ability to work within academic and innovation-action project structures.

Highlights from their portfolio

• GATES
  Their largest funded project (EUR 255,281) and the most commercially interesting — applying game technology to smart farming professional training is a concrete B2B application with clear market relevance beyond the research context.
• ProsocialLearn
  Demonstrates their founding capability in prosocial behavior and youth inclusion gaming, establishing the behavioral science dimension of their game design approach.