During autumn 2025, the Play in the Academy team hosted a series of ‘Playshops’ at Exeter, Cardiff, and Bristol Universities.
The term ‘playshop’ comes from the merging of ‘play’ and ‘workshop’ and are essentially workshops that centre play and playfulness in their activities and delivery. Playshops are participatory workshops that use creative practices to investigate the tacit knowledge of participants working in different disciplines, roles, and institutions. The ‘playshops’ in this guide were designed to explore the perceived nature and value of play for individuals, and as part of collaborative teams, to support the development of the prototype conceptual framework of play in hierarchical organisations.
We think they are a fantastic method to create spaces for engaging with challenging topics (e.g. research cultures) in an open, creative, and playful way. They allow for a playful community to emerge and for participants to network and share information and playful ‘tactics’. The playshops in our guide can be adapted for a range of contexts and to playfully explore a range of topics. Get the guide here!
What happens during a Playshop?
Playshops lasted between 3.5 – 4 hours, with three main sessions. At the start of the workshop, we used the Chatham House Rule to faciliate open and honest dialogue. Its basic premise is that “participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed”.
In the first session, we sought to create a taxonomy of play through engagements in creative materials – collaging, plasticine/clay, and building blocks. We engaged participants in a creative discussion around a selection of questions e.g.: “What does play mean to you?”, “Do you play in your professional life? Why or why not? How?“, “Do you play in your personal life? Why or why not? How?“, and so on.
The second session, we asked participants to respond to the question: Does play show up in universities? How? And who plays and why? Using the materials from session 1, we invited participants to create their own metaphor for play in universities and academia based on an existing game (e.g. snakes and ladders, monopoly, etc.).
In the last session, we asked participants to engage in role play. The facilitators role played a scenario about a common workplace meeting or event that participants joined to change its course. Then, to conclude, we asked participants to reflect on the previous activity and the workshop as a whole – focusing on the ‘types’ and purposes of play in academia identified throughout the session.
Get the Playshop materials!
Our Play in the Academy OSF project hosts two resources you can use to get started with your own Playshop: A Playshop Guide document, and a template Powerpoint to support the schedule and activities suggested in the guide. Both resources are made available for you to use and adapt under a Creative Commons BY-SA license.
Suggested citation: Asker, C., Trowbridge, H., Flexer, M., Alcorn, A. M., & Jongbloed, E. U. (2026, May 26). Play in the Academy: Playshop materials. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/XZDVN