Every day, academics and professionals working within the sports industry are creating new ideas and discovering new things. The sports industry is a medley of cross-disciplinary knowledge and collaboration, bringing together engineers, nutritionists, psychologists, physiologist, people managers and coaches, biomechanists, programmers, and even chemists, who are helping to shape and define the future of sport!

This industry melting pot of disciplines is mirrored within the PhD Sports Research community at Sheffield Hallam University, and as a result this often leads to interesting discussions with contrasting views of developments within sport. Over coffee recently, which is a key component for a quality chat, two of our cohort Sports Engineer Will Dawber and Sport Psychology graduate Andy Higham had the thought of making these discussions more accessible to others. From this the Sports Research Rundown podcast was born. Its aim is to bring, and reveal, all the interesting research that is currently going within the field of sports to those with a love of sport.

The podcast is hosted by Andy and Will who with their contrasting backgrounds guide the discussion, diving into their own and others research to learn and discover. As a Sports Engineer, Will is all about the quantitative research aspect, something that he applies daily in his research to understand conditions that can lead to brain injury and how helmet design may reduce risk. In contrast Andy takes a more qualitative approach to research as he explores how the experience of football coaches influence their own perspective of their well-being.

The podcast airs in short weekly episodes of 10~15 minutes length, presenting research overviews from experts in academia and the industry, and is available on Spotify, Apple, and Amazon. It is designed to be accessible to both students, professionals, and the public, those who have a love of sport or are curious about the science behind the sport. In each episode Andy and Will, question and explore the research topic, whilst considering the wider impact that the research may have on society. They also explore the highlights but also the challenges faced by the researchers as they undertake their work.

The first two episodes of the podcast are available now to listen to. Episode one sets up the series giving an overview of what to expect, and the second episode explores physical activity interventions within diabetes research. There are upcoming episodes on the globally popular running event ‘Parkrun’, as well as insights into the complex psychological states athletes experience during activity. The plan for future episodes is to continue with local guests, providing an opportunity to promote their research and give the hosts an opportunity to learn new things from interesting people… and drink more coffee!

And this is where you come in, Andy and Will are interested in hearing from you! Do you have an interesting research question or findings in a sport/health related topic? If so please do get in contact with us either by email at  sportresearchrundown@gmail.com or through X(twitter) at https://twitter.com/SRR_Podcast. Will and Andy are also actively looking for feedback so make sure to get in touch and leave a rating if you’ve listened!

Listen to the latest Sport Research Rundown podcast now via Spotify, Apple, and Amazon.