RISES: 20 Years, 20 Stories

Celebrating 20 years of PhD students from the Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences.

The Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences (RISES) at Liverpool John Moores University celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. RISES was established in 1997 and continues to be the vibrant home of research activity within the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at LJMU. The School is the home of sport sciences and at the forefront of innovation and development in our discipline for over 40 years. It was the first institution in the world to host a single honours degree programme in sport science back in 1975.

Following a successful Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) performance in 1996 (one of the three institutions rated 5) it was decided that the quality and volume of research activity within Sport and Exercise Sciences at LJMU merited the creation of a Research Institute. RISES was thus established under the leadership of the late Professor Tom Reilly to enable the ambitious range of projects planned at that time with the intention of “becoming a world leader with benchmark standards of excellence for others in the discipline to aspire to”. Twenty years after its establishment, RISES is now the top UK institution for research quality in sport and exercise sciences having been ranked 1st in the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 in UoA26 based on Research Quality Index data, with 97% of our total research activity rated world-leading or internationally excellent.