08/2023

HHub's thematic newsletter

Football as a platform for cooperation, bringing together a broad range of stakeholders

August kicked off with Athletic Club representatives from Bilbao visiting Finland. Representatives from the Club not only did discuss underlying principles of coaching education and players’ physical parameters with the Football Association of Finland and local club JJK Juniorit, but also witnessed the special stage at Jyväskylä WRC rally. Talks between Athletic Club and the University of Jyväskylä continued and next steps set regarding sport performance research and injury prevention.

Moving forward, the collaboration of the Football Association and the University of Jyväskylä brings numerous exciting events in the coming weeks and months, of which I would like to highlight the following two:

First, BrainSPORT is an emerging project with the aim of supporting healthy brains for wellbeing and sustainable careers in football players. The ecosystem around BrainSPORT offers opportunities for academic research as well as technological innovation. Using the ACT Head Impact Tracker to measure the frequency and magnitude of hits is a good example.

Second, we are staging a hackathon event around football next spring. The goals of the hackathon will revolve around topical issues in both top-level and grassroots sports: sustainability in football, and performance analysis that benefits players, coaches and viewers. If you want to be kept updated on these aforementioned events, join the football research newsletter from here.

Wishing you All a successful autumn season,

Mihaly Szerovay

Professor of Practice, Research and Development in Football
University of Jyväskylä, Football Association of Finland
mihaly.m.szerovay@jyu.fi 

LALIGA builds networks in the Nordic countries and Jyväskylä

LALIGA serves as the umbrella organization for the top two divisions of Spanish football. It has also become more active in the Nordic countries in recent years and engages in close cooperation with Sport Business by JAMK. Additionally, new initiatives in sports innovation have been planned with LALIGA, read more from the article. 

New ideas for junior-level soccer – JJK Juniorit and Athletic Club to cooperate

This autumn, cooperation between the City of Jyväskylä, the University of Jyväskylä and Bilbao’s Athletic Club will begin at the club level as JJK Juniors will seek ideas for developing its own activities from the junior activities of the Spanish top club. Educational trips to Bilbao are made possible by Erasmus+ funding, the allocation of which to Jyväskylä is a fine example of the power of local-level cooperation.

Jyväskylä is partnering with Bilbao ecosystem

Jyväskylä has innovation cooperation with Bizkaia BEAZ which is being followed by shared research agenda between the Club and University of Jyväskylä. Our intern Petteri asked from Nina Rautiainen, Program Manager, what are the dimensions of the collaboration and how did it start? 

Data analysis is a win-win for research and top-level football

Researchers at the University of Jyväskylä have launched joint research projects with Athletic Club, which will provide both parties with valuable information. Our intern Petteri Itäranta interviewed Johanna Ihalainen, a lecturer and Eero Savolainen, a doctoral researcher from the University of Jyväskylä about the researchers perspective. 

Interesting to know also:

• Finnish football and futsal research database with almost 2000 publications: https://tutkimustietokanta.palloliitto.fi/
• A dissertation work on head impacts in Finnish elite women’s football (BrainSPORT) is starting in the fall with several stakeholders i.a. Football Association of Finland, Aston University, Football Players Association of Finland and Northern Sports Insight and Intelligence Oy.
• Follow the latest football research news from https://www.jyu.fi/sport/fi/yhteistyo/palloliitto/jalkapallotutkimus/tutkimusuutiset 

This newsletter has been produced in cooperation with the University of Jyväskylä. Our intern Petteri Itäranta from the University of Jyväskylä has collected these articles into a comprehensive overview of the cooperation between Jyväskylä, the Athletic Club and the Spanish LALIGA. Many thanks to Petteri for his valuable contribution!

HHub - the Nordic Health, Sports & Wellbeing Ecosystem

Interested in learning more?
Please contact Ecosystem Lead Nina Rautiainen: nina.rautiainen@jyvaskyla.fi

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