About the Chair

The Chair aims to advance knowledge, policy, and practice in how sport, physical activity and education are and may be utilised for the physical, personal, and social development of young people across the world. To pursue this aim, the Chair works closely with relevant stakeholders including young people, local communities, policymakers, NGOs, sport clubs and federations, corporations and small businesses, as well as fellow academics and students.

More specifically, the Chair seeks to:

• Build capacity and impact, as well as to provide advice and guidance, across these diverse stakeholders
• Undertake research and disseminate this work across different audiences
• Deliver teaching and training at Loughborough University and elsewhere
• Build networks and partnerships, including strengthening the links and collaborations of UNESCO Chairs in sport and other relevant fields.

The Chair also aims to support local, context-based, decentralised approaches to development that recognise cultural variety and difference, and which facilitate community-level shaping of development campaigns, activities, programmes and strategies.

Building upon Loughborough's world-leading reputation

The Chair builds upon Loughborough University’s long-standing reputation for world-leading research in sport and our exceptional critical mass of academics with expertise and interests in this area. Students, particularly at PhD and Masters levels, are actively involved in Chair research, education, outreach work, and other activities.

The Chair team are drawn from many disciplines, notably: anthropology; cultural studies; development studies; economics; education; geography; health sciences; law; management and business studies; physiology; policy studies; political science; psychology; and sociology.