event
Division of Physiology Sciences Seminar
12 October 2022
Abstract:
Purpose: Innovation is crucial for maximising athletes’ health and performance in rugby union. A key component of innovation is collaboration and engagement from all stakeholders. Stakeholders span multiple disciplines and sectors forming a network on interactions which drive the innovation. Therefore, gaining a better understanding of how stakeholders collaborate may provide a basis for enhancing future innovation success. The objectives of this PhD thesis are: to analyse how stakeholders collaborate in rugby union innovation; to identify focus areas of rugby union innovation; to provide insight into the drivers and barriers of knowledge creation and collaboration; to create a framework to assist stakeholders in knowledge creation and collaboration for rugby union innovation. These objectives are investigated using social network analysis based on bibliometric data (scientific publications), keyword networks, and a set of case studies where the primary data source are interviews with actors.
Preliminary Data: There is an increase in scientific knowledge creation and collaboration for rugby union innovation between 1977-2020. Actors producing knowledge were from the university, healthcare, professional sports team and sport’s governing body and industry sector, although industry plays a small role. Most of the actors are located in England, Australia, France, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa. Australian Catholic University, Leeds Beckett University, Stellenbosch University, Swansea University, University College London and the University of Cape Town are the most influential actors between 2016-2020 for rugby union innovation. Inter-sector collaborations shows that Sports Governing Bodies are highly collaborative and act as a broker between actors across sectors.
Natalie is a 3rd year Masters student at UCT in the Division of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine. She did her undergraduate degree in Human Anatomy and Physiology and Biochemistry at UCT in 2018, followed by her honours in Exercise Science and Sports Medicine in 2019. Her primary research focus, and passion, is knowledge translation and science communication. She also enjoys weight training, running, spending time with her friends and coffee.
Please join us for our Seminar today at 13h00 for Natalie Erskine’s PhD upgrade proposal. She is supervised by Dr Sharief Hendricks, Dr Faatiema Salie and her title is: Innovation in Sports Medicine and Science - A global social network analysis of stakeholder collaboration in rugby union.