Research to determine if women have cognitive advantages that could help them become stars in the male-dominated esport sector, where players compete for more than €500 million in prize money annually, has been launched by Lero, Ireland’s Research Centre for Software, and University of Limerick.

Lero researchers at the bespoke Esports Science Research Lab—the first of its kind in Europe—have teamed up with Logitech, a designer of software-enabled hardware solutions. This collaboration aims to leverage Logitech's expertise in hardware design and Lero's research capabilities to establish elite women gamers’ cognitive and gaming abilities.

Director of the Esport Science Research Lab and Co-Principal Investigator on the project, Professor Mark Campbell, said gaming is now a multi-billion-euro industry with professional gamers, coaches, and competitions viewed by audiences that compare in size with well-established major sporting events like the Superbowl, the golf majors, Wimbledon, and the Six Nations.

“Even though esports don’t require as much physical effort as traditional sports, there is a dichotomy whereby men feature much more prominently than women at the highest levels of play. Yet most of the video gaming and esports research to date predominantly tests male participants, which means we know little to nothing about elite women gamers' cognitive and gaming performance.”

Dr Adam Toth, Principal Investigator on the project, added: “This project will continue to grow the capabilities and expertise within the Lero Esports Science Research Lab, utilising bespoke experimental techniques, expert investigators, and high-level processing and analysis tools to identify the attributes of elite women gamers and how we can enhance women’s performance and experience in gaming.”

Dr Toth said the goal of this project is to extend collaborative work between Lero and Logitech in esports and break new ground by investigating the cognitive and gaming performance of elite women gamers.

“We will do this by using bespoke hardware and software to capture behavioural, physiological and performance data during professional and amateur gamers' training and play sessions to highlight any significant cognitive differences between male and female gamers. This data primarily will come from the differing instrumentation of games/gaming devices, and processing and analysis techniques will be employed to assess the cognitive and in-game similarities and differences of elite women gamers compared to their male counterparts,” he added.

The two-year project at the University of Limerick, which will cost close to €120,000, builds on a successful eight-year collaboration between UL and Logitech and will enhance the capabilities and status of the Esports Science Research Lab at the University of Limerick.