Lero established Europe’s first esports science research lab in 2016. The lab is headed up by Dr Mark Campbell and consists of a multidisciplinary team of researchers currently co-funded by industry and Science Foundation Ireland.

The lab, located at University of Limerick, has an eight-year collaborative agreement with a multinational firm and conducts research with other research centres, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and multinational (MNC) firms. The lab aligns with Lero’s world-leading research in the health, wellbeing and human performance sectors. Amongst other things, the lab investigates how software and technology can impact, serve or help us understand a person’s physical and mental condition, and performance.

The aim of the Lero Esports Science Research Lab is to explore and identify key factors that influence performance related to gaming success by capturing behavioural, physiological and performance data during the play sessions of professional and amateur gamers. This data comes from video-capture of players, instrumentation of games/gaming devices, and obtaining psycho-physiological measurements like the electrical impulses occurring in the brain, eye fixation, sensory perception thresholds, pressure imposed on interaction devices and pupil dilation.

Data processing and analysis techniques are then employed to identify discriminating features for performance prediction, thus determining Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for gamers.