The Long-Term Athletic Development of School Sport AthletesFull-time Sponsored Postgraduate Research Student Bursary - start date February 2020

Leeds Beckett University and Queen Ethelburga’s College are looking to recruit a highly motivated individual for a PhD studentship.

This is a unique opportunity for an enthusiastic and high-achieving individual looking to undertake a PhD in a vibrant research and athlete development environment. The successful candidate will deliver strength and conditioning and sport science support within Queen Ethelburga’s College alongside their PhD project.

The long-term athletic development of today’s youths is currently a hot topic with recent consensus statements (Lloyd et al., 2016, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26933920; Bergeron et al., 2015, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26084524) highlighting numerous challenges of developing the health and performance of youth athletes. These challenges are related to training and competition load (e.g., Phibbs et al., 2018, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29303682), wellbeing and recovery (e.g., Sawczuk et al., 2018, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29478381) alongside education and psycho-social development (e.g., Rongen et al., 2018, https://sportsmedicine-open.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40798-018-0135-2). This PhD studentship provides the opportunity to explore the impact of strength and conditioning / sport science on the long-term athletic development of school sport athletes and help innovate and drive current and future practices.

The successful candidate will be embedded within Queen Ethelburga’s College providing Strength and Conditioning and Sports Science support to school athletes aged 13 to 18 years. The practical commitment will involve a maximum of 3 days of delivery per week (30 weeks per year) at the College whilst allowing the candidate to undertake innovative research on long-term athletic development.

Applicants are encouraged to discuss their proposals and the project with the Project Lead; Professor Kevin Till ([Email Address Removed]).