Loughborough working with Sport England to encourage more people to get involved

The University are kick starting the year by looking at how participation in sport can be increased.

The project, funded by Sport England, will see academics within the School of Business and Economics (SBE) and the School of Sports Exercise and Health Sciences (SSEHS) working alongside the Union to understand behaviour change techniques and campaigns that can be piloted at Loughborough and then applied across higher education sport.

The project will capture sport participation among students via a range of techniques, particularly through the use of student ID cards. It aims to gather data of the entire student body’s sport and physical activity.

The data generated will be placed alongside other non-sport related data in the hope to develop insight into individual student activities.

This insight will allow Loughborough to market and promote opportunities at a personalised level, in the hope to achieve the ambitious target of having 75 per cent of all students playing some form of sport three times a week.

The data generated will also allow more insightful decision making and strategic planning.

The Direction of Sports Development, Tim Garfield, said on the project’s potential: “This is an important project for a University that wants to be world leading in all aspects off HE sport. The insights it will provide us will enable us to better target and tailor our sporting offer to ensure it meets the needs and aspirations of every individual student.”

Director of LSU, Andy Parsons, added: “Being able to understand, communicate with and motivate our students is at the heart of everything we do.

“This project will help us build on our fascinating, experimental work segmenting our students based on their needs, attitudes and aspirations. Our collaboration with the Loughborough University Sports Development Centre on this project provides a unique and meaningful laboratory for work that has potential application far beyond both Loughborough and sport.”