RIO Editorial Office

12/11/2018

FIT Project turns to interdisciplinarity to understand injury factors in youth football

To address the alarming injury rate in youth footballers in Sweden, the project Injury-Free Children and Adolescents: Towards Better Practice in Swedish Football (FIT project) seeks to fill in the knowledge gaps by bringing biomedical and social science together.

With its multi-angled and interdisciplinary approach, the project involves a sample of male and female Swedish football players aged 10 to 19, in order to provide concrete, evidence-based recommendations for injury prevention strategies for the use of sporting federations, sport education institutions, coaches, sport support staff, as well as players.

Having received funding by the Swedish Research Council for Sport Science, the grant proposal is published in the open-access journal Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO Journal). Currently finalising its data collection stage, FIT project is being conducted at the Department of Food and Nutrition, and Sport Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, by PhD student Solveig Hausken, Dr Natalie Barker-Ruchti, Dr Astrid Schubring and Prof Stefan Grau.

While injuries in youth athletes could potentially instigate injuries later on in their careers or even force them to drop out of sport, so far, research has focused almost exclusively on the biomedical perspective and the identification of clinical and mechanical risk factors. However, little is known about the role of socio-cultural risk factors.

In contrast, FIT Project turns simultaneously to the disciplines of biomechanics, sport medicine, sport coaching and sport sociology. The researchers conducted laboratory tests to determine the physical and sport-specific dispositions of each player; handed out questionnaires to register details about experienced injury; performed interviews with both coaches and players to shed light on the coaching-training dynamics; and made direct observations on the coaching methods and coach-athlete relationships within the sporting context. Each of these sub-studies is meant to produce a separate dataset to be subjected to an interdisciplinary analysis.

“The FIT project is a rare example of how injury research can integrate biomedical and social science disciplines to produce multiple data sets and an interdisciplinary data analysis procedure,” the team explains.

The researchers expect to identify injury risk factors including: growth and maturation; injury history and general health; biomechanical and clinical parameters; training factors such as training intensity and recovery time between trainings; and contextual factors such as pressure to perform, athletic ideals and knowledge of coaches about injury prevention.

Starting in January 2019, a pilot analysis including the multiple datasets will be conducted. The team will be publishing updates on the FIT project’s progress on its website.

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Original source:

Hausken S, Barker-Ruchti N, Schubring A, Grau S (2018) Injury-Free Children and Adolescents: Towards Better Practice in Swedish Football (FIT project). Research Ideas and Outcomes 4: e30729. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.4.e30729

06/11/201706/11/2017

Advancing the science and management of European intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams

A COST Action set to bring together scientists and stakeholders from across 14 countries within Europe

Intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams (IRES) are waterways that cease to flow and sometimes dry. However, there is much left to learn about them, including their occurrence in the landscape, ecology, economic and societal values and incredible biodiversity. For efficient and adequate management and protection actions, these knowledge gaps need to be closed sooner rather than later.

In a call for a better understanding of IRES and their vital role in nature, a large international team, led by Dr. Thibault Datry, a freshwater ecologist working at IRSTEA, Lyon, France, has initiated the “Science and Management of Intermittent Rivers and Ephemeral Streams (SMIRES)” project. Their grant proposal, as approved for funding by the European framework COST, is published in the open science journal Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO).

This COST Action brings together hydrologists, biogeochemists, ecologists, modellers, environmental economists, social researchers and stakeholders from 14 countries from around the continent. The aim of the interdisciplinary team is to develop a research network for synthesising the fragmented knowledge on IRES. In turn, improved understanding of IRES will translate to a science-based, sustainable management of river networks.

Along with networking between scientists and stakeholders, the Action will accommodate a whole set of good practices, including data sharing, technology development and citizen science.

*The Calavon River, a Mediterranean IRES, during flowing (left) and dry phases (right).*

Amongst the goals of the project are the creation of two meta-databases providing open data about IRES research activities and flow stations with intermittent flows; a proposal for novel indicators and technologies to assess changes and associated ecological responses in IRES; and the development of a European-scale network of citizen scientists to monitor, locate and map river flow states with the help of smartphone technology.

Having been ignored in conservation policies and initiatives, IRES are being degraded at an alarming rate. Water extraction, flood harvesting, river impoundment, channel modification, land-use change and mining are only part of the threats faced by IRES across Europe. In many areas, they are even used as disposal areas. For others, they are channelled underground or connected to larger water bodies as a means of flow augmentation, which could potentially lead to the spread of invasive species.

The researchers point out that lack of recognition and understanding lead to the rapid degradation of IRES.

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Original source:

Datry T, Singer G, Sauquet E, Jorda-Capdevilla D, Von Schiller D, Subbington R, Magand C, Pa?il P, Miliša M, Acuña V, Alves M, Augeard B, Brunke M, Cid N, Csabai Z, England J, Froebrich J, Koundouri P, Lamouroux N, Martí E, Morais M, Munné A, Mutz M, Pesic V, Previši? A, Reynaud A, Robinson C, Sadler J, Skoulikidis N, Terrier B, Tockner K, Vesely D, Zoppini A (2017) Science and Management of Intermittent Rivers and Ephemeral Streams (SMIRES). Research Ideas and Outcomes 3: e21774. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.3.e21774

24/10/2017

Pilot Project provides findings and advice on data sharing in development research

Launched just ahead of last year’s FORCE11 conference devoted to the utilisation of technological and open science advancements to communication of scholarship, the data sharing pilot project of Prof. Cameron Neylon, Centre for Culture and Technology, Curtin University, Australia, and his collaborators has published its final outcomes days before FORCE2017.

The project made use of the innovative open science RIO Journal, which allows for the publication of various research outcomes and sorting them into dedicated collections. The collection, “Exploring the opportunities and challenges of implementing open research strategies within development institutions: A project of the International Development Research Center” now features the project’s grant proposal as approved by the IDRC, a review article, several data management plans and case studies, and the final report as a research article.

The pilot project looked into the current state and challenges of data management and sharing policies and practices, as shown by case studies of seven IDRC-funded development research projects.

Having worked with the projects selected from across a range of geographies, scales and subjects over the course of 16 months, the data sharing initiative began with an introduction to data management and sharing concepts, as well as helping the projects to develop their own data management plans. Then, they carefully monitored and observed the implementation of those plans.

Over the course of the project, it became apparent that simply developing and implementing funder policies is not enough to change research culture. The question of how funder policy and implementation could support culture change both within research communities and within the funder itself became the focus of the initiative.

Data management plans have become a mandatory part of grant submission for many funders. However, they are often not utilised by researchers or funders later in the project, becoming “at best neutral and likely counter productive in supporting change in research culture.”

While the pilot project managed to identify a number of significant bottlenecks within both research institutions and for grantees that impede efficient data sharing practices, including, expectedly, lack of resources and expertise, the researchers specifically point out issues related to structural issues at the funder level.

“The single most productive act to enhance policy implementation may be to empower and support Program Officers,” says the author.

“This could be achieved through training and support of individual POs, through the creation of a group of internal experts who can support others, or via provision of external support, for instance, by expanding the services provided by the pilot project into an ongoing support mechanism for both internal staff and grantees.”

Amongst the findings of the pilot project are also the importance of language barriers and the need for better suited data management platforms and tools.

Furthermore, the study identified a gap between the understanding of “data” amongst cultures, pointing out that the concept of data is “part of a western scientific discourse which may be both incompatible with other cultures, particularly indigenous knowledge systems.”

In conclusion, the research article outlines a set of recommendations for funders, particularly those with a focus on development, as well as recommendations specific to the IDRC.

Original source:

Neylon C (2017) Building a Culture of Data Sharing: Policy Design and Implementation for Research Data Management in Development Research. Research Ideas and Outcomes 3: e21773. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.3.e21773