✨“Doing research is hard work. It also is fun and exciting.
In fact, nothing can compare to the joy that comes from discovery.” ✨
– Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin, 1998, p.14

Playful Minds Research Consortium: Playful Entrepreneurial Minds: Playfulness and hybrid intelligence in higher education and working life project (2026-2030, funded by the Research Council of Finland) explores how playfulness, an entrepreneurial mindset, and hybrid intelligence can support learning, wellbeing, and innovation in higher education and working life. The project examines how playful and entrepreneurial ways of acting are manifested and can be supported across individual, social, and organizational levels, and how they enhance the meaningfulness of learning and work. The research develops new pedagogical solutions, such as an instrument to study a playful and entrepreneurial mindset, and studies human–AI interaction as part of playful learning processes. In collaboration with leading Finnish and international researchers, the project builds a foundation for future learning and a sustainable, future-oriented working life that recognizes the potential of playfulness.

Playful Minds is also a multidisciplinary research group dedicated to exploring the playful nature of the human mind and its power to enhance learning, well-being, and creativity from early childhood to working life. We investigate how playfulness, playful learning, and imaginative, open-ended ways of engaging with the world can support learners in an increasingly complex and technology-rich society, and how to develop playful learning pedagogy across school levels. Our international research brings together perspectives from educational sciences, technology, and organizational psychology, and draws on data collected from diverse contexts and countries. We examine playful and game-based learning learning at all school levels across disciplines, students’ playful interactions with emerging technologies such as generative AI, and the role of adult playfulness in workplaces, leadership, and professional growth.

The Playful Minds group consists of enthusiastic researchers and doctoral researchers who share a passion for understanding and cultivating playfulness as a human strength in a world facing significant societal and environmental challenges. Together, we co-create new knowledge, experiment with innovative methods, and develop future-oriented learning and working environments where playfulness is valued as both a mindset for change and a foundation for human flourishing, learning, and well-being.