Researchers Dr Niki Koutrou, Dr Geoffery Z. Kohe and Dr Sakis Pappous have just been awarded a substantial grant of £12,000 by the International Olympic Committee as part of its prestigious Advanced Researcher Award Scheme.
Lead by Principal Investigator, Dr Koutrou, the project is entitled ‘Reawakening Sport and Community Engagement in a previous Olympic Host City: Capitalising on the Athens 2004 Olympic Volunteer Legacy 16 years on’. The application was praised for its success in addressing the IOC’s priority research areas of intangible host city legacies, volunteering and legacy evaluation, and was only one of a handful funded out of a pool of over 40 applicants from around the globe.
The project focuses on understanding the ways in which Olympic host city status has affected Athen’s urban sporting landscape, grassroots sport communities and the volunteer sector. Drawing on archival research and interviews with sport and community stakeholders, the aims of the project are broadly to understand enduring and contemporary sport volunteering cultures within the city, and to identify ways volunteering opportunities and community sport development may be made more sustainable.
Dr Koutrou noted:
‘The grant is significant international recognition for the School and a marker of its continued reputation in the field of Olympic-related research. We are excited to be undertaking the project, particularly at a time when questions about social responsibility, community engagement, mega-event legacies, and the sustainability of sport more generally, have become increasingly important. We look forward to understanding and sharing the lessons from Athens experience.’
The project will involve research undertaken at the IOC headquarters and Olympic archives in Switzerland and fieldwork in Greece in 2021. The work will specifically contribute both to local policy and organisational work within the city’s communities, and also inform the IOC’s Olympic host-city legacy monitoring and evaluation initiatives.
The grant follows Dr Koutrou, Dr Kohe and Dr Pappous ongoing work on the Olympic movement, sport organisations and mega-events, volunteering and legacy, and the wider activity of the ‘Sports Legacies and Society’ group. The group’s work has been previously recognised with funding from the Newton Fund, Erasmus + Sport EU, and Football Association. Relevant publications can be found below:
- Towards an Olympic volunteering legacy: motivating volunteers to serve and remain – a case study of London 2012 Olympic Games volunteers
- Sport, Education and Corporatisation: Spaces of Connection, Contestation and Creativity
- Kent Academic Repository