The Faculty of Health Wellness and Life Sciences is a diverse and vibrant faculty that has a focus on improving the health, physical activity and wellbeing of individuals and the quality of services and care provided.   There is a significant public sector focus to the faculty, with strong collaborations with the NHS and Local Authorities, and there are also partnerships with elite athletes and sports clubs, including those for athletes with disabilities.

The faculty comprises three schools: Children Young People and Families; Health and Life Sciences and Sport and Wellbeing. The strength of the faculty is its diversity and integration, reflecting how learning and working together leads to the challenging assumptions, and creating novel solutions to real world problems. It is a growing faculty, in both its portfolio but also its research and knowledge exchange, with world leading outputs in a number of areas such as sports science.

Below are some examples of current research activities and themes.

The research vision and mission in the School of Sport and Wellbeing (SAW) is to find new ways to support the physical activity, movement and performance needs of a diverse range of communities; be it elite athletes performing at the highest levels and/or in extreme environments, children engaging in physical education, learners across the life-course, elderly exercisers, ‘hard to reach’ and at-risk physically inactive groups and those recovering from illness or injury. Accordingly, SAW now addresses two major dynamic multi- and inter-disciplinary themes, being:

1) Enhancing Human Performance: Led by Prof. Russell, has strength in team sports performance and almost exclusively involves research with application to Olympic, elite or professional sports men and women or top-level junior athletes

2) Improving Health and Wellbeing throughout the Lifespan: Led by Prof. Barwood, with a particular strength in the effects of safety behaviours to reduce the risk of death by drowning, and growing expertise in supporting the physical activity and health needs of a diverse range of communities including children, through adulthood, to elderly individuals and clinical and at-risk populations.

In the School of Health and Life Sciences and the Faculty of Social Sciences and Education are collaborating to undertake inter-disciplinary research on the Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR) and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) as biomarkers of tinnitus distress.  Colleagues in the Biomedical Science team are  spearheading an interdisciplinary research initiative integrating biochemical pathway analysis with biophysical technologies to study the electrical-biophysical interface of cancer and wound healing. This collaboration holds significant promise for real-world applications, particularly in addressing two critical healthcare challenges: improving cancer care by halting disease progression and enhancing chronic wound management through innovative, non-invasive therapeutic interventions.

In the School of Children, Young People and Families colleagues are collaborating with external stakeholders and industry to offer consultancy and Continuing Professional Development in relation to special educational needs and early years environments.