Academic Reference Group

Our academic partnership is lead by this reference group


Dr Mathew Dowling

Dr Mathew Dowling

Senior Lecturer

Anglia Ruskin University

Dr Mathew Dowling is a Senior Lecturer within the Cambridge Centre for Sport and Exercise Sciences at Anglia Ruskin University. His principal research interests include sport policy and governance, organisational theory, professionalisation, and government involvement within the not-for-profit sport sector.

Professor Paul Downward

Professor Paul Downward

Professor

Loughborough University

Professor of Economics, Loughborough University

Research publications

Paul has wide ranging interests in sport and physical activity. He has recently helped to edit a volume on Sport Management being responsible for the contributions from economics. He has published two books on the Economics of Sports. He is currently planning a second edition of one of these volumes and a helping to edit a Handbook on Sports Economics. He has embarked on studies of the determinants of health, well-being, social capital, human capital and labour market impacts of sports and physical activity in the UK, as well as sports volunteering.

He also has an interest in the research philosophy, methods and ethics of economics, has published in these areas, and engaged in ESRC and other funded postgraduate training workshops.

Dr Iain Lindsey

Dr Iain Lindsey

Associate Professor in Sport Policy and Development

Durham University

Dr Iain Lindsey is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Durham University. Prior to joining Durham in 2014, he had previously been employed as a researcher and lecturer at Loughborough, Southampton and Edge Hill Universities. He has a BSc in Mathematics from University of Edinburgh, an MA in Sports Development from Cheltenham & Gloucester College of Higher Education and a PhD in Sport Policy from Loughborough University.

Iain's research has primarily examined sport policy and development, especially youth sport policy in the UK and the use of sport for development in Africa. Across Iain's research, he has addressed issues such as governance and partnership working, evidence-based policy and sustainable development. Engagement with practitioners and the importance of understanding of local contexts has also been a common thread across Iain's work.

Iain has published widely in sport, development and policy journals and has co-authored books on Sport Policy in Britain with Barrie Houlihan and Localizing Global Sport for Development with Tess Kay, Ruth Jeanes and Davies Banda. He has also co-authored the Commonwealth's policy guidance on Enhancing the contribution of sport to the Sustainable Development Goals. Besides the Commonwealth, Iain has worked with organisations such as UK Sport and the Sport and Recreation Alliance.

Dan Parnell

Dan Parnell

MMU

Dr Dan Parnell

Dan graduated in Sport Science (Exercise and Health) from Liverpool John Moores University in 2014 with his PhD. He is senior lecturer in Business Management at Manchester Metropolitan University, within the Sport Policy Unit (Department of Economics, Policy & International Business). He is the Research Director of Connect Sport, a network that serves to raise awareness of and participation in community sport research. Dan is on the Management Board for the Association of Sporting Directors, a network that serves to support leaders in football and is a co-Founder and Editor of The Football Collective, a platform to share and engage in critical debate around football, which is also the largest global network of football researchers. On top of this, Dan serves on a number of leading sport journal editorial boards, frequently reviews for leading sport journals and maintains outstanding links to the sport industry.

MMU Profile

Paul Widdop

Paul Widdop

Leeds Beckett

Paul Widdop

Leeds Beckett University

Paul has wide ranging interests around the consumption and production of sport in society, especially around context, place, and inequality. Paul has a background in social statistics, awarded a PhD from the Social Statistics discipline at University of Manchester in 2010. He is currently a senior researcher in Sport Business at Leeds Becket University, previously holding a role as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Change at University of Manchester. In addition, Paul is also a core member of the University of Edinburgh's Academy of Sport, co-founder of the Football Collective, and research editor at Connect Sport. Currently Paul has several editorial roles, including Reviews Editor for the Journal of Consumer Culture and board member of Cultural Rends Journal.

Paul is a co-author of 'Collective Action and Football Fandom: A Relational Sociology Approach' (2018) and co-edited two books; 'Social Networks and Music Worlds' (2015) and 'Routledge Handbook of Football Business and Management' (2018). Paul has published widely in areas of sport and popular culture including articles in, Journal of Consumer Culture, Cultural Sociology, Cultural Trends, Political Behaviour, Electoral Studies, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, and Leisure Sciences. Prior to an academic role, Paul was a social research consultant working with public sector bodies such as, Scottish Government, Learning and Skills Councils, Museums Libraries and Archives Council, and Regional Development Agencies. ​