Sport Data Center receives 250,000 euros
The Sport Data Center of, among others, Leiden University, has been added to the group of Sportinnovator expert centers. Sportinnovator is the Dutch national research programme that is aimed on innovations in sports. The Center receives 250,000 euros to work on what the Dutch secretary of Health and Sports Edith Schippers described as: “Get together, focus and create output for innovations in sports in the Netherlands.”
Profit from one another
The support was announced at the National Sportinnovator Event XL in Eindhoven, last Tuesday. Sportinnovator is a programme of the Dutch research fund ZonMW. It aims on the creation of physical ‘hubs’ in which sport innovators can help each other and will look over the Dutch borders together. Reseachers, commercial companies and other parties must be able to profit from each other's expertise.
Sports and data science
Data are important for almost any sportsman or –woman. Athletes record times, body pose, field position, you name it. In the Sport Data Center (SDC), scientists work together with sport teams and overarching organisations.
SDC-founder and professor data science Joost Kok of Leiden University: “We want to analyse the big data of sports and use it to improve, for example, tactics and material. But it is also applied to stimulate people’s activity and to get insight into match fixing.”
Parties involved
The Sport Data Center consists of the data science disciplines of Leiden University (Leiden Centre of Data Science) and Technical University Delft (Delft Data Science), combined with the sport science branches of the Amsterdam Institute for Sport Science and the Sport Engineering Institute of the Technical University of Delft.
Support
Joost Kok: “This recognition feels as a tremendous support. It is good to take up big data and sport together. We can still win a lot.
Presentation film
Watch the short presentation film of the two new Sportinnovator expert centers.