UKAD partners with University of Birmingham to offer PhD Studentship on doping behaviours

UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) has partnered with academics from the University of Birmingham to offer a four-year PhD Studentship focusing on doping behaviours.

The aim of the PhD Studentship is to explore and identify doping behaviours by athletes and to develop a risk assessment model and predictive tool that utilises mathematical modelling to identify potential doping. This will enable UKAD to further improve its targeted testing of athletes and could help shape a UK innovation and pioneering approach for anti-doping agencies around the world.

The PhD Studentship, to start in October 2024, comes following the successful application submitted to the new Centre for National Training and Research Excellence in Understanding Behaviour (CENTRE-UB) for over £100k of funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

UKAD’s Research and Innovation Lead, Dr Nikola Costa, commented: “Together with academics from the University of Birmingham, we have developed a programme of research that shall seek to enhance our athlete-specific doping risk assessments. This represents an exciting new source of funding for our research activity. We are now inviting applications for this four-year Studentship and are looking forward to development of this project.”

Prof. Ian Boardley, Professor of Sport and Exercise Psychology at the University of Birmingham and a lead academic involved in this project, said: “This project represents a great example of the type of high-quality interdisciplinary research that can be conducted when academic and non-academic partners collaborate to tackle real world problems relating to an area of common interest. There is real potential to answer several unanswered questions relating to doping behaviour using innovative and novel approaches. I look forward to working with UKAD on this project.”

Prof. Jessica Woodhams, Professor of Forensic Psychology at the University of Birmingham and Director of the CENTRE-UB, added: “This PhD on doping behaviour is an excellent example of a CENTRE-UB PhD that fits within our theme of systems thinking – understanding that behaviour occurs within the context of multiple systems. We are delighted to be partnered with UKAD which will facilitate widespread impact from the PhD as well as providing the successful candidate with an excellent environment within which to learn about research in practice.”

Informal enquiries about the project prior to application can be directed to Professor Ian Boardley (I.d.boardley@bham.ac.uk) or Dr Rowland Seymour (R.G.Seymour@bham.ac.uk).  

For more information about the project and to be considered for this PhD, please visit the website: www.birmingham.ac.uk/centre-ub. The application deadline is Thursday 16 May 2024, with interviews to be scheduled between 10 and June 20.