Fellow: Dr Nimi Mengying Niu; Partner: Birmingham City Council; School/Dept: School of Sport, Exercise, and Rehabilitation Sciences
My fellowship focuses on impacts and legacies of major sporting events and grassroots storytelling. I have a keen interest in using digital storytelling method to explore the interconnections between memory, impact and legacy within the context of major sporting events. More specifically, my research interests include leveraging major sporting events for community engagement and sport participation, digital storytelling in sports events, as well as understanding individuals’ behavioural intentions to engage in sport, physical activity and events.
In collaboration with project partner Birmingham City Council, firstly I will disseminate the established “major sporting event engagement toolkit” designed for community-based groups and organisations and test its feasibility through two pilot cases, including educational training workshops. Secondly, I am designing participatory workshops for local communities to share their individual stories and memories of past major sporting events hosted in Birmingham and translating research findings into publicly accessible formats (podcast, art exhibition, etc). Thirdly, based on the data collected through partnership working with various programmes, I plan to create another “major sporting event engagement toolkit” tailored for individuals, especially young people.
Updates and highlights related to my Centre-UB Fellowship will be posted on News and Outputs webpages.