UCFB lecturer awarded ‘best presentation’ prize at national academic conference

One of UCFB’s lecturers has been awarded a ‘best presentation’ prize at an annual academic conference at Aston University in Birmingham.

Dr Noel Dempsey, lecturer in BA (Hons) Football Coaching and Management at our Manchester Campus, has been presented with the award at the British Education Research Association (BERA) Conference.

When asked about the award, Noel said: “BERA ran an Early Career Researcher (ECR) symposium in Leeds in May that encouraged ECRs to present within an ‘inspiration’ or ‘impact’ strand related to their journeys within their studies/research.

“I decided to present in the ‘inspiration’ strand with a presentation titled “The Challenges of wearing multiple hats: Navigating the positionality of ‘researcher-practitioner.’” Fortunately, I was awarded best presentation in that strand.”

He added: “Presentation came off the back on an ECR article which myself and colleagues outside of UCFB produced (currently under review).

“It was shaped by our experiences of our PhD processes and illuminating our struggles navigating different spaces during our research journey. From this, I produced a presentation and submitted an abstract to BERA’s ECR symposium.”

At the conference, Dr Dempsey presented at the ECR Lunchtime Lecture: Inspiration and Impact.

Looking forward to his future research, he finished that he will look further into his interest fields which focus on coach education policy, coach development, curriculum design and assessment.