Founded in 2010, the Sport & Society Research Network investigates sport as both a cultural system and a social practice. It examines how competition and collaboration, performance and participation, professionalism and play intersect across contexts—tracing sport’s role in shaping identities, communities, and economies. Through interdisciplinary inquiry, the Network studies how sport embodies ideals of fairness, health, and excellence while also reflecting inequalities, commercialization, and power relations, bringing research, policy, and practice into sustained conversation.
The International Conference on Sport & Society is hosted each year with a leading institution. Recent and upcoming partners include Monash University (Australia), the University of Granada (Spain), the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (United States), and the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences. Each edition engages a Special Focus that explores contemporary issues—from globalization, gender, and mega-events to education, governance, and community development—through dialogue among scholars, practitioners, athletes, and policymakers.
The International Journal of Sport and Society publishes peer-reviewed research on sport’s game logics, body logics, aesthetic logics, and organizational logics. Articles address topics such as inclusion and exclusion, media representation, doping and integrity, health and body image, movement aesthetics, and sports governance. Indexed in Scopus, SPORTDiscus, and IBSS, the journal follows COPE standards and operates as a hybrid open access venue. All submissions undergo double-anonymous peer review guided by a transparent, rubric-based process that emphasizes conceptual clarity, methodological rigor, and social relevance.
The Sport & Society Book Imprint supports monographs and edited volumes that advance theoretical and applied research on sport’s relationships with culture, politics, and the economy. Volumes connect academic insight with educational, community, and policy applications—bridging scholarship with practice in areas such as coaching, management, health promotion, fan cultures, and sport-for-development initiatives.
The Sport & Society Research Network’s Member Knowledge Community on CGScholar is a year-round hub for members—keeping profiles, projects, and conversations in motion. Built for collaboration, it offers a multimodal authoring environment with light, community-guided review to strengthen purpose, clarity, and reader context before sharing. Works in progress sit alongside programs, recordings, and calls, connecting conference presentations with our journal and book imprint, and opening structured pathways for ongoing participation and publication across sport cultures, health, policy, governance, and activism.
The Network is led by Chair Jörg Krieger (Aarhus University, Denmark), whose research examines the politics of elite sport, anti-doping, and athlete activism. The Founding Chair was Keith Gilbert (University of East London, United Kingdom), who established the Network’s global and interdisciplinary foundation. Under their leadership, the Network continues to expand its reach—supporting methodological innovation and ethical dialogue in the study of sport and society.
Aarhus University, Denmark
Partnerships extend the Network’s mission, linking universities, research institutes, and civic organizations committed to sport as a force for education, equity, and community building. Recent collaborators include:
Miami, Florida, USA
Toronto, Canada
Granada, Spain
Aarhus, Denmark
Las Vegas, USA
Melbourne, Australia
Lillehammer, Norway