NEW INSTITUTE OF SPORTS HUMANITIES LAUNCHES
The Institute of Sports Humanities has launched its first programme, an MA Leadership in Sport, in association with the University of Buckingham.
The course, written by former England cricketer and current chief selector Ed Smith, is aimed at the next generation of leaders in sport: players, captains, coaches, administrators and entrepreneurs.
The London-based MA will explore sport’s cultural importance and how it became the world’s third largest industry.
It will include special events at Lord’s, Google and Arsenal FC, as part of a programme that will combine the latest academic research alongside seminars by leading practitioners.
Speakers are set to include David Epstein, Mervyn King, Mike Brearley, Kasia Boddy, Howard Marks and Simon Kuper.
Commenting on the programme, Smith said: “I’d just finished setting up the syllabus for MA Leadership in Sport when I started my new role as selector for England cricket. I’m delighted to see the MA come to fruition. The MA represents an innovative and exciting first step for the new Institute of Sports Humanities at the University of Buckingham.”
Vice-Chancellor of Buckingham University Sir Anthony Seldon added: “Ed Smith is the perfect person to lead the Institute. He is one of Britain’s most original and respected thinkers, and is a top quality writer and academic, who also played sport at the highest level. And now he is chief selector for England cricket.
“Given sport’s ever expanding cultural significance and economic prominence, this is the ideal moment to study the subject through a humanities lens.”
The first cohort of students will begin their 15-month, non-residential programme in September 2019.
Modules will cover areas including the ethics and governance of sport; the challenges of decision-making and judgment; decoding the signals of history; balancing data and intuition; and sport’s role as an agent and beneficiary of globalisation.
The Institute of Sports Humanites was co-founded by Smith, Seldon and entrepreneur Andrew White.