The University of Gothenburg has opened the Centre for Health and Performance Development to further strengthen its contributions in the areas of physical activity, sport science, nutrition, performance development and health promotion.
In 2011, the University of Gothenburg inaugurated the School of Sport Science – a brand-new facility for research and education in the areas of physical activity, performance development and health promotion. A laboratory was soon established to strengthen the University’s operations in the areas of health promotion and sport science in collaboration with various internal and external actors. In recent years, the activities at the laboratory have expanded dramatically.
‘The conversion of the lab to a full-blown centre of expertise and research is great news and will help take the work to the next level,’ says Claes Annerstedt, head of the host department, the Department of Food and Nutrition, and Sport Science, and chair of the steering group for the Centre.
Next, the laboratory will be made more widely available to internal and external actors.
‘Our ambition is for the Centre for Health and Performance Development to serve as a highly demanded infrastructure for the whole University. We expect it to become a natural hub for all of the University’s operations in the fields of health, nutrition, physical activity and sport science,’ Annerstedt adds.
The Centre for Health and Performance Development provides a structure for already existing collaborations between the Faculty of Education, Sahlgrenska Academy and Chalmers in the areas of both research and education.
‘The Centre will offer a platform for new interdisciplinary collaborations in the mentioned research fields and will be able to provide advanced guidance, supervision and infrastructure for undergraduate, Master’s and PhD students who want to study health- and performance-related issues from a multidisciplinary perspective,’ says Annerstedt.
The Centre has two directors: Stefan Grau, professor of biomechanics at the Department of Food and Nutrition, and Sport Science, and Mats Börjesson, professor of sports physiology at the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy.
Centres of expertise and research serve as meeting places for students, researchers, business and public actors. All of them are interdisciplinary and may also involve other higher education institutions. The University of Gothenburg currently has about 20 centres of expertise and research.
The decision to establish the Centre for Health and Performance Development as a centre of expertise and research was made by the Vice-Chancellor on 26 June.