Software giant Microsoft is giving $1.5M to join an alliance of academic institutions and researchers called the Games for Learning Institute.

Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, said the G4LI project would promote the study and use of games as a way to educate students in math and science.

The Institute is a joint research project which includes Microsoft, New York and Columbia Universities, City University of New York, Dartmouth College, Parsons, Polytechnic Institute of NYU, the Rochester Institute of Technology and Teachers College.

The G4LI will identify which qualities of computer games engage students and develop relevant, personalised teaching strategies that can be applied to the learning process, Mundie said.

The technology has the potential to help reinvent the education process and excite and inspire young learners to embrace science, math and technology, he added.

Microsoft is providing $1.5 million to the Institute. NYU and its consortium of partners are matching Microsoft's investment, for a combined $3 million. This will cover the first three years of the G4LI's research, which will focus on evaluating computer games as potential learning tools for science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects at the middle-school years. X