Timothy Noël Peacock

From 1 August 2025, I will be Senior Lecturer in History and War Studies.

My cross-disciplinary research in History 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.

My work, grounded in interdisciplinary History research, brings together different theoretical and applied methods to explore new ways of understanding and tackling societal challenges. My dual aim is studying sociopolitical 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 lead combined teams totalling up to 35 researchers, interns and software developers as Principal Investigator (PI) for funded projects on research and educational gaming and simulation.

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

I have designed and run research-led Serious Games and simulations from AI Cyber Resilience exercises 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 Veterinary Medicine.

I have worked with public, private and non-profit/charitable sectors, including collaborations 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 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 global comparisons with Modern British Politics and Political History, including in studying the 2017 Westminster Minority Administration. My articles range from YouTube discourses on Memetic Warfare (the uses of memes in war) to the cinematic legacies of nuclear testing and rethinking intelligence gathering during the Cromwellian Protectorate. My outputs similarly include leading development of research-informed games/simulations and published UK Parliamentary Evidence.