The GST Lab is a research and practice lab at the University of Edinburgh Business School, working at the intersection of complexity science, gamification and game studies, participatory design and civic systems thinking. Our mission is to support organisations, communities and society to build the capacity to engage with, and thrive in, complexity.

We do this in three ways:

  • We create a continuous dialogue about how systems thinking and gamification can be deployed and evolved for real-world impact, addressing live challenges while building lasting capability.
  • We co-create gamified environments that help people understand and interact with complex systems, connect their parts, and change them.
  • We co-create tools and templates grounded in systems-thinking methodology, that help people practice systems thinking while cultivating their own agency.

Our home is Edinburgh, and our outlook is unmistakably so: rigorous, philosophical, and practically oriented toward the public good.

A note on language

We recognise that language can itself be a fragmenting force. The different measures of success used by government, academia and business can stand in the way of the collaboration that turns cutting-edge research into real-world change. We hold this in awareness as we work across those worlds.