Project details
This PhD project is a part of the Vice-Chancellor's Scholarship looking to support the sport, health and wellbeing agenda. This opportunity forms a suite of five projects focusing on sports for climate action and nature.

The sports industry accounts for about 1% of global carbon emissions, mainly focused at the highly visible elite level of sport such as mega sporting events and major leagues, providing opportunities for sport to be an important driver and influencer of action on climate change. And yet sport is also vulnerable to climate change, with 120 out of 180 Olympic nations potentially unable to facilitate sport in the future due to projected changes in environmental conditions.

Sports for Climate Action and Nature (SCAN) is a vibrant new research cluster bringing together expertise in sport sociology, physiology, nutrition, management, ecology and engineering. Together with the United Nations Environment Programme and collaborators across the sports sector, Loughborough University is pioneering the work that will ensure sport’s continued existence in a climate-changed world and position the sector to contribute meaningfully to environmental solutions. There has never been a more important time to shape a better environment for current and future generations through the medium of sport.

As part of the five collective studentships in the Sports for Climate Action and Nature cluster, this PhD will investigate the impact of climate change on factors such as playability, injury risk, and maintenance of sports pitches, with a view to informing policy and estates management. It will benefit from existing industry support within the world-leading Sport Surfaces Research Group, including access to training and networking opportunities. The group has strong links with major organisations such as FIFA, FIH, Tencate and Labosport with many past graduates enjoying successful careers within the industry. The studentship is suited to an engineering graduate with an interest in sport and climate change.

The successful candidate will utilise a variety of research techniques to build knowledge and understanding related to the impact of climate change on the performance of sports pitches. Working in collaboration with the supervisory team, you will undertake a series of studies in the Sports Technology Institute laboratories, and in the field, investigating the effects of environmental factors such as temperature, moisture, UV on different aspects of pitch performance, e.g. player-surface interaction, player heat stress, pitch durability. This will include developing your analytical skills and practical engineering skills to consider both the short and long-term effects on pitch performance. The findings from this studentship will contribute to, and support, the overarching climate action goals of the research cluster.