The Playkit
20/06/26
The Playful Research PlayKit v1.2 is now live!
The Playful Research PlayKit is a practical, evolving, open-access resource designed to support researchers across disciplines in understanding, designing, and conducting playful research.
Developed as part of the methodology for our project, the PlayKit introduces the theoretical foundations and practical applications of how researchers might co-create conditions in which curiosity, trust, and playful knowledge-making across disciplines can emerge. Combining approaches from Science and Technology Studies (STS) with theories of play, playfulness, and speculative design, playful research is introduced as a valuable, innovative methodology for interdisciplinary research.
The PlayKit provides a colourful, playful, academically rigorous introduction to the concept of playful research. Through dynamic conceptual framework, it presents the Foundations, Modes, Approaches and Ethics of research that considers play and playfulness central to its methodology. It also includes resources to help practitioners in design and critically evaluate their own playful research practice playful research, including a curated collection of tested methods, a Playful Research Checklist, and a Reflexive Play Diary.
The PlayKit is a work in progress; v1.2 serves as an archived starting point that will be developed and iterated on, rather than a definitive guide. If have suggestions or feedback, we’d love to hear from you at medicinewithoutdoctors@ed.ac.uk.