Ever since the discovery of their optical afterglows, Gamma-ray bursts have been a promising way of probing galaxies at high redshift and the evolution
of structure and star formation history in our universe.
To make full use of the opportunities GRBs offer us, we require access to a large number of telescopes and fine-tuned robotic and rapid response
observing modes, many of these we developed in-house. In this talk I will explain our current GRB afterglow observing campaigns and methods on
ground-based telescopes (eg Gemini, VLT, WHT, UKIRT, AAT, WSRT, NOT), focussing on the need to acquire large, relatively unbiased samples of GRB
afterglow spectroscopy.
I will show how GRBs provide unique perspectives on the kinematics, abundances and chemistry of high redshift dwarf galaxies, and how we will use future
instrumentation (e.g. Lofar, X-Shooter on VLT, ACAM) to push to higher redshifts (z>8) and answer some of the puzzling questions brought up by our
current spectroscopic campaigns.