Agnessa Spanellis

Agnessa Spanellis is a senior lecturer of Systems Thinking at the University of Edinburgh. The theme throughout her research work is gamification. Her research is focused on gamification as a new approach that can transform working practices in an organisation, e.g., by helping companies to transform into learning organisations, improve their innovativeness or make better decisions in the context of sustainability. Currently, she is interested in how gamification can be used as a medium for interacting with algorithms that support decision-making and how decisions are made when different stakeholders are exposed to various experiences (of the future) created by the algorithms and mediated by a gamified environment.

Her other major area of interest includes the ways in which gamification can improve social and environmental sustainability. She has led and participated in AHRC, GCRF and EPSRC funded projects, engaging with policy makers and working with rural, indigenous or impoverished communities in Colombia, Guyana, Indonesia and Brazil, where gamification was used to improve preparedness for the pandemic or a natural hazard. Currently, she is interested in how gamification is used to support citizen participation in policy making, e.g., through gamified public consultations, and whether gamification can democratise policy development.