Lecturers at Bradford University want to get youngsters excited by science - by getting them to play on their mobile phones.

The university wants to stop people being turned off subjects like science and technology by developing computer games to help them learn.

The project will look at producing games which can be played on the internet, computers and mobile phones.

Professor Peter Excell, from the university's school of informatics, is leading the two-year programme, which has received £40,000 of European funding. He said: "We are currently in a paradoxical situation. While science and technology play key roles in today's global economy, young people are turning away from science subjects.

"Clearly raising interest in science among young people is necessary for increasing the number of future science professionals."

Bradford University is part of a consortium taking part in the project along with institutions from Finland, Ireland, Italy, Belgium and Hungary.

He said: "We are researching into the delivery of educational content through mobile devices and game technologies. We see these as important areas to investigate due to their proliferation in today's youth culture.

"Games are a rich mode of interaction that can hone important skills in the player, such as strategic thinking, planning and hand eye co-ordination, literacy, numeracy, problem solving and sequencing as well as providing the interest and motivation to learn."

The software will be designed with the help of Bradford University graduate Anton Iacono, who developed mobile phone games as part of her Interactive Systems and Video Game Design course.

Prof Excell said that once the games were designed the University would look to test them to see if they appealed to young people before looking at ways to market the products.

He said: "Mobile technologies have already become very widespread among children and young people, especially in the UK.

"As science is perceived as a hard subject, we are looking at finding ways to explain these difficult-to-understand concepts through digital media. Our aim is to develop a set of educational games to teach science using mobile devices."