Title: Emerging intersections of biomedical technology and elite sport: institutions, practices and ethics
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: Biotechnological medicine and elite sport are two of the most powerful and symbolic institutions of the contemporary era. They spearhead scientific enterprise and public culture. The incidence of injury to elite sports performers is conspicuous, often represented as a crisis of national and individual ambition, and the pressure for state-of-the-art prevention, diagnosis and treatment is severe. There are growing signs of interactions between these two worlds (for example International Football Federation FIFA's rapidly expanding accreditation of globally-distributed cutting-edge medical centres). Yet there is no systematic investigation of the intersections between elite sport and biomedical innovation and the significance for society. The project will examine the development and application of a set of innovative biomedical technologies relevant to musculoskeletal injury, as a lens through which to explore the emerging interactions. Musculoskeletal injuries are prominent amongst high performance athletes and there is a high level of bio-scientific activity in this field, for example for articular cartilage repair and stem cell research in tendons and muscles. This focus will enable us to ask two types of questions. Against an initial mapping of emerging interactions between the sports and biomedical fields, the research will ask, first: What are the effects of sports patronage and collaboration on biomedical innovation, and conversely, how does biomedical research and technology innovation impact on elite sports and its athletes? Second, the research will clarify the ethical issues raised by these developments in the public sphere and how publics and stakeholders understand and evaluate these issues (including but not confined to the 'human enhancement' debate). A multi-method research design will set the study in the context of sports in general, focusing on football (soccer) and cycling as case studies because of their different funding regimes and injury profiles. Data will be collected via documents (e.g. medical policies and research policies of sports organisations), interviews (e.g. with medical officers, insurers, biomedical scientists) and observation methods (e.g. at sports' medical conferences). We will carry out ethical analysis and undertake public engagement (deliberative interactive online debate; focus groups) to clarify issues of concern, and to inform and elicit public opinion. Implications will be presented in a policymakers' forum. The research will inform stakeholders in sports and biomedicine and their intermediaries, and will be of value to a range of policy communities including both Science/Enterprise/Business and Culture/Media/Sports, to academic study of emerging scientific economies, science & technology studies and the sociology of sport, and will be of immediate concern to wider publics and sports participants, given special impetus around the London Olympics and other world-level sports events in the UK in this decade. The UK is the primary focus, set in the context of wider regional and global sports organisation and authorities, international bioscientific networks and medical practice. An expert advisory group including sports representatives and a specialist clinical scientist with sports connections will support the project.


Research activity codes: 8.1 ORGANISATION AND DELIVERY OF SERVICES;8.3 POLICY, ETHICS AND RESEARCH GOVERNANCE
Health categories: INJURIES AND ACCIDENTS