Dr Verity Postlethwaite

Verity Postlethwaite is a doctoral prize fellow in the research theme Sport, Business and Society in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences. She completed her PhD at the University of Worcester in 2020 and has since been connected to several positions across higher education and industry, including a part-time lectureship at the University of Manchester and funded projects with SOAS University of London, the Lawn Tennis Association, sportscotland and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Verity started as a fellow at Loughborough University in 2023.

Verity’s research is broadly focused on international sport events with a particular interest in how sport and other cultural entities have been used in local, national, and international contexts to govern society. Her research activities are connected to an established international network of governing actors related to a variety of organisations, where strategies and programmes include engagement with inclusion, placemaking, sport and cultural policy, and sport diplomacy.

Verity has published in journals across the social sciences and humanities, including Sport in Society, Diplomacy & Statecraft and Sport Management Review. Verity is part of two edited book projects as a co-editor, Handbook of Sport and Japan (in press) and 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup: Politics, Representation and Management (in press). Across these two books, there is representation from scholars in different continents and disciplinary perspectives.

Verity is passionate about promoting partnerships across international and disciplinary boundaries. Coupled with this, Verity continuously looks to forge communication and impact pathways between research and industry, with a particular speciality in translating research into strategic thinking and policy formation.

• Associated editor for Sport in Society
• Leadership group member for the UK Sports Development Network
• Member of the panel for the British Society of Sports History, Lord Aberdare Literary Prize
• Research associate in the Japan Research Centre at SOAS University of London
• Research associate and consultant for Counsel Ltd.

• Verity Postlethwaite, Claire Jenkin & Emma Sherry (2022) Sport diplomacy: an integrative review, Sport Management Review, DOI: 10.1080/14413523.2022.2071054
• Adam Beissel, Verity Postlethwaite & Andrew Grainger (2022) “Winning the women’s world cup”: gender, branding, and the Australia/New Zealand As One 2023 social media strategy for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™, Sport in Society, 25:4, 768-798, DOI: 10.1080/17430437.2021.1980780
• Verity Postlethwaite, Geoffery Z. Kohe & Gyozo Molnar (2018) Inspiring a generation: an examination of stakeholder relations in the context of London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics educational programmes, Managing Sport and Leisure, 23:4-6, 391-407, DOI: 10.1080/23750472.2019.1591296
• Verity Postlethwaite & Jonathan Grix (2016) Beyond the Acronyms: Sport Diplomacy and the Classification of the International Olympic Committee, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 27:2, 295-313, DOI: 10.1080/09592296.2016.1169796
• Verity Postlethwaite (2014) Sochi Winter Olympics and the controversy of the Russian Propaganda Laws: is the IOC buckling under the pressure of its own incoherence in thought? .International Sports Law Journal 14: 264–274 (2014). DOI: 10.1007/s40318-014-0059-z