Dr Timothy Peacock is a Lecturer in History and War Studies, and Director/co-founder of the Games and Gaming Lab (UofGGamesLab) at the University of Glasgow.

He leads combined teams totalling up to 35 research assistants, interns and software developers as Principal Investigator (PI) for funded projects on research and educational gaming and simulation. These projects range from creation of research-informed tabletop wargames/Serious Games with policymakers to educational video games with heritage organisations, including Projects AWARE (Access to Wargaming in Education), Gamestorm, Tempest, Minecraft Ellisland, Earth Environmental impacts of Space Junk, and HeritAIge. 

In UofGGamesLab/GGLab since 2019 (first as Co-director and subsequently Director), he has been responsible for areas including strategic planning, experimental projects, and membership, building this to over 300 members. His varied Lab work has involved incubating and supporting research/Knowledge Exchange projects with colleagues in Subjects ranging from Astrophysics to Veterinary Medicine.

He has worked with public, private and non-profit/charitable sectors, including collaborations with organisations from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and St Giles' Cathedral to the Scottish Games Network.

Dr Peacock's 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.

These are also areas in which he has been approached to provide expert external Consultancy.

He has made media contributions, including to BBC, ITV and national newspapers, on subjects from Spaceflight history to gaming.

He has been invited by internal and external organisations to design and run research-led Serious Games and simulations from Arts and Humanities AI Cyber Resilience exercises to games around Nuclear and Space Diplomacy.

Dr Peacock’s work, grounded in his History research, brings together these interests to explore new ways of understanding and tackling societal challenges. His dual aim is to study the history of how organisations (don’t) learn and sociopolitical and military effects of new technologies.

Since 2019, he has been a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (RHS) and was a Visiting Fellow at the British Library Eccles Centre for American Studies from 2019-23.

His 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 and studying the 2017 Westminster Minority.

His 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. His outputs similarly include leading development of research-informed games/simulations and published Parliamentary Evidence.

He has lectured at Glasgow since 2015, convening courses in American History, War Studies, Games History, and Intelligence/Security. His teaching has also included British/French/Japanese Imperial History and Modern European Socio-cultural History.

He has received national recognition for his leading role in technology enhanced learning and teaching, awarded the Royal Historical Society's UK Innovation in Teaching Award (2020). He also received Glasgow University Student Representative Council’s Highly Innovative Teaching Award (2022) and Teaching Excellence Awards at University-wide and College levels (2018). He is a member of the University’s Teaching Excellence Network.

My key areas of research interest include:

• Games and (War)Gaming History (including the uses of history in games)

• Space Security and Spaceflight History

• Nuclear History (including Nuclear Weapons Testing and Nuclear Diplomacy)

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• History of Technology (including sociopolitical and military effects of new technology)

• Gamification/Use of games in learning

• Modern American and British - Political/Military History (including minority governments/coalitions)

• Early Modern Intelligence History

Research groups

• Early Modern History

List by: Type | Date

Selected funding includes:

• PI for "Project CO-GREAT: CO-created Gamified Resilience Engagement Accessible Toolkit (historical and current rail transport resilience involving flooding) - EPSRC DARe Flex Funding £49k (2025)

• Co-I for "Sci Seedlets: Developing Product Pipeline for Plant Science Education" - IAA BBSRC/MRC £25k awarded (lead for £3.5k work package) (2023-25)

• PI for "Project HeritAIge: Exploring new AI augmented approaches for translating heritage into research-led educational games" (Main Project) - GKEF + St Giles Cathedral £13.9k + £7.2k matched support (2023-24)

• PI for "Project HeritAIge" (Pilot Initiative) - Interface SFC Standard Innovation Voucher £4.8k + £4.9k matched support (2023)

• PI for “Project Tempest: Enhanced wargaming of flooding crises through cross-disciplinary application of computer simulations from space junk `Earth environmental impacts'” - NERC funding, £8k

• Co-I for Project INASSEM (Innovators Assemble) - Aspect Consortium, £10k

• PI for Project Gamestorm (Pilot Scheme) - Reinvigorating Research Funding, £23k (2022)

• PI for Minecraft Ellisland - COVID Recovery Funding, £6.5k (2022)

• PI for “Exploring new cross-college ways of simulating ‘Earth environmental impacts’ of orbital debris/disaster” - NERC Discipline Hopping, £3k (2022)

• PI for Project AWARE -Learning & Teaching Development Fund and further funding from partner organisations, £13.5k (2021)

• PI for Glasgow Wargaming Initiative (GWI) - Learning and Teaching Development Fund Grant, £4k (2020)

• British Library Eccles Centre Visiting Fellowship (2019-23)

• Cross-College Themes Funding - Games and Gaming Symposium (2019)

I am very happy to supervise on topics in American and British Political, Military, Technological and Sociocultural History in the Modern Era. I have also supervised topics on different areas of Early Modern History.

My current broad areas of interest include:

• Nuclear History (civil and military) – including nuclear weapons testing, wargaming, popular culture/filmic representations, intelligence, and memorialisation
• History of Space and Spaceflight - including security, space debris, policymaking, simulations, cultural impacts
• Games and Gaming - including the use of history in games (whether physical or electronic), heritage gaming, wargaming, game culture, the history of games/gaming, the uses of games in learning
• AI (Artificial Intelligence) - including responsible uses of AI, history, gaming/simulation, technology impacts
• Political, military and sociocultural impacts of new technology
• Politics - including elections, minority government/coalitions

Current PGR supervision includes:

• Hanna, Stephen
  Evaluating Military Intelligence in War: The Burma Theatre of World War Two as a case study in objective focused analysis
• O'Leary, Eleanor
  Valuing the Gaming Community: Preserving MMOs Through Co-Creation
• Pasternack, Rhys
  Dark Souls and the Borders of Belief
• Yue, Mengyuan
  Cultural diversity and remote working of UK NGO Employees

Previous supervision

I have supervised on a range of subjects, Undergraduate & Postgraduate Taught/Research, including, for example:

• We Choose to Go to The Moon':  An analysis of newspaper media perceptions and the development of a cultural legacy following John F. Kennedy's 1962 'Rice University' speech

• ‘I’d like to tell you about what I’ve been going through’: An examination of the video game L.A. Noire’s treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder

• Articulations of Inclusivity in In-game Concerts: a Multi-case Study

• EU representations of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in security debates 

• How did the US domestic press response towards atomic weapon tests change during the 1950s?

• Max ‘glaubt, er ist John Rambo!’: Cinematic Narrations of the Afghanistan Heimkehrer in Comparison to the Vietnam Veteran

• Manned Orbiting Laboratory: America's Manned Military Spy Program in Space

• Media perceptions of the Postwar Occupation of Japan

Awards

• Highly Innovative Teaching Award - Students Representative Council, University of Glasgow (2022)

• UK Innovation in Teaching Award - Royal Historical Society (£1k) (2020)

• Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) (2020)

• University Teaching Excellence Award - University of Glasgow (£2k) (2018)

• College of Arts Teaching Excellence Award - University of Glasgow (£1k) (2018)

Current Teaching

Postgraduate

• THE AMERICAN WAY OF WAR: FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE WAR ON TERROR (HIST5021)

• GAMES AND GAMING HISTORY (HIST5165)

• INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS AND POLICY MAKING (HIST5138 - IMSISS CORE COURSE)

Honours courses

• FROM THE SPACE RACE TO STAR WARS: US CONFLICT AND COOPERATION IN ORBIT, 1945-2019 (HIST4278)

I have given guest lectures/seminars/Master Classes in different Subjects at the University of Glasgow, on topics from Spaceflight History to the uses of Gaming in Education.

I previously gave lectures/seminars to the MLitt in War Studies and Global Security Core Courses on the subject of: 

• NUCLEAR DIPLOMACY: FROM TRUMAN TO TRUMP

• AIR BATTLE OVER JAPAN IN WW2

I previously taught the Honours courses:

• THE AGE OF EMPIRE: CONQUEST AND COLONIALISM IN THE 19TH CENTURY AND BEYOND

• ATOMIC DREAMS: SOCIETY, SCIENCE AND SOLDIERS IN NUCLEAR AMERICA, 1945-1979

I have also previously taught lectures/seminars on:

• HISTORY 2AM: SOCIETY, CULTURE & POLITICS IN NORTH AMERICA HIST2002
• HISTORY 2A: THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY OF EUROPE, 1500-2000
• HISTORY 2B: AN INTRODUCTION TO GLOBAL HISTORY

My roles involving Innovation, Research, Knowledge Exchange, Management and/or Public Engagement include:

• Director of the University's Games and Gaming Lab (UofGGamesLab/GGLab) @UofGGamesLab 

• Convener of the EMWIP Early Modern Research Seminar Series at Glasgow University since 2020.

• Creative Economies and Cultural Transformation (CECT) Theme member since 2023.

• Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic (CFF) Core Team member since 2023. 

• HACK the ARC (Advanced Research Centre) Project Team member since 2023.

• Scottish Centre for War Studies and Conflict Archaeology Social Media Officer since 2017: @UofGWarstudies

• College of Arts and Humanities Impact Accelerator Account (IAA) Steering Group member since 2022. 

• Member of Academic Networks including BAAS (British Association for American Studies), SASA (Scottish Association for the Study of America), HOTCUS (Historians of the Twentieth Century United States), SDOS (Social Dimensions of Outer Space), Space Research Network Glasgow.