Timothy Noël Peacock

My cross-disciplinary research in History and War Studies is underpinned by interlocking interests in areas including Nuclear, Spaceflight/Space Security, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Wargaming, Gaming and uses of history in games, and Politics.

Grounded in interdisciplinary research, my work brings together different theoretical and applied methods to explore new ways of understanding and tackling societal challenges. My dual aim is studying social-political and military effects of new technologies and ways in which games/simulations may best be developed/used as research, training, teaching and engagement tools.

I have mentored Postdoctoral (including MSCA), PhD, Masters and Undergraduate students from a number of different countries.

I lead up to 35 researchers, interns and software developers in teams, as Principal Investigator (PI) for funded projects on research and educational gaming and simulation.

These projects range from my creating and running research-informed tabletop Exercises with the United Nations (UN) in Geneva to Project HeritAIge, transforming St Giles' Cathedral into a research-based historical video game. 

I have co-designed and run research-led Serious Games and simulations from AI Cyber Resilience exercises and gamifying of rail transport flooding mitigation to games around Nuclear and Space Diplomacy.

As Director of UofGGamesLab (co-founder in 2019), I am responsible for areas including strategic planning, experimental projects, and membership, building this to over 300 members. My varied Lab work has involved incubating and supporting research/Knowledge Exchange projects with colleagues in Subjects ranging from Astrophysics to Virus Research.

I have worked with public, private and non-profit/charitable sectors, collaborating with organisations from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to the Scottish Games Network. I received the Rising Star Award for Knowledge Exchange and Innovation in 2024 from the College of Arts & Humanities at the University.

My Manchester University Press monograph, The British Tradition of Minority Government (July 2018), uses declassified files to reveal hidden strategic dialogues in 1970s minority governments, making comparisons with global current affairs and political history. My articles range from YouTube discourses on Memetic Warfare (uses of memes in war) to cinematic legacies of nuclear testing and rethinking Early Modern intelligence gathering. My outputs similarly include leading development of research-informed games/simulations and published UK Parliamentary Evidence.