Twenty years of ECSS: A scientific balancing act?

The European College of Sport Science (ECSS) was created in 1995 with the following object: “the promotion of Sport Science in an international, multicultural, multidisciplinary as well as interdisciplinary framework”.

Two founding members, with the support of the ECSS president¹ and staff, of board members and colleagues from five European universities decided in 2013 to assimilate a short history of that organisation for its 20th anniversary (in 2015) and to look at the state of some key challenges that were put forward as fundamental for the ECSS at its creation. This issue is the modest and limited outcome of that project. We say “modest and limited” since Professor Bengt Saltin, who gave his agreement to be actively involved in that work, was not able to deliver his invaluable contribution to that group because of health reasons. We dedicate this special issue to his memory, and the lasting contribution that his scientific vision had upon the ECSS.

This initiative took place in a quite new area of knowledge called “science studies”,² an interdisciplinary research area that seeks to situate science in a broad social, historical and philosophical context. The research project is based on the following three objects of interest:

• What is the European “Sport Science Community”?; who are the sport scientists working within it; and in which institutions do they work?

• What are the outcomes of that scientific community? and what kinds of knowledge does it produce?

• What are the processes underlying this production?; how do this scientific community proceed to deliver these results; and what are some of the key challenges it is facing?

The investigation was based principally on an analysis of the information contained in the ECSS databases: (i) the European Database of Sport Science (EDSS) (powered by Sportools GmbH) gathering more than 24,000 abstracts presented during the first 19th ECSS Congresses; (ii) its EDSS meta-database, collecting key variables on these abstracts and the ECSS members account on which we have had access to some variables (excluding protected individual ones) concerning more than 17,000 current; and (iii) ex-ECSS members since its creation. Based upon that analysis, each individual article in this special issue comprises a specific and original insight into the complex workings of this multidisciplinary world.

The research work has been undertaken by a “European team” of scholars and scientists from a broad array of disciplines with several meetings and exchanges about the nature and diverse intellectual contributions necessary to capture the broad research questions concerning the nature and knowledge production of the ECSS.³ The articles presented here give the main outcomes of that broadly collective experience. One of its effects is the quite unusual reappearance in the European Journal of Sport Science (EJSS) of the same authors in several papers, which is a product of the fluid interplay of ideas.

In a single issue it has not been possible to present all the data and analyses collected in response to the three general questions we have put forward. Instead, we have concentrated our efforts on how the question of “disciplinarity” and “interdisciplinarity” has been managed by the researchers and the institutions to which they belong and how they could be at the core of sport science development as a new area of research and even as a new scientific discipline.

The article entitled “Disciplinarity and sport science in Europe: A statistical and sociological study of European college of sport science conference abstracts” by Stéphane Champely, Patrick Fargier and Jean Camy gives a synthetic overview of the situation of sport science in Europe. The number of yearly abstracts has been increasing regularly (+90 per year) with some intermittent peaks. This rise is in recent years largely due to representation by academics from beyond European borders. In addition to that quantitative increase in scientific production, it is important to understand how far sport science has developed in its construction as a “new scientific” discipline. When we look at the literature, four stages of evolution of a topic are considered: social network, cluster, specialty and discipline. The scientific production can, therefore, be classified as disciplinary or non-disciplinary. In sport science, the “disciplinary” components, which means the production belonging to already existing and recognised disciplines (forms of intellectual enquiry), remains the most important component of sport science’s self-identity, but it has been less dynamic in the recent years. Three areas to which they correspond, according to the theory of Bourdieu (1975), three scientific “habitus” (understood as a “structuring structure” that organises practices and the perception of practices, and is common to individuals having gone through comparable formative experiences and training in their understanding of the lifeworld of science) and their related “strategies” are established: Social Sciences and Humanities; Sports Medicine and Physiology; and Biomechanics and Neurophysiology. Basically, conservation strategies of academic disciplinary excellence are established in Biomechanics and Neurophysiology; limited strategies of interdisciplinarity based on professional concerns or foci appear in the Sports Medicine and Physiology area; and critical strategies of interdisciplinarity based on social utility are present in Social Sciences and Humanities.

The second article, entitled “Structure and dynamics of European sports science textual contents. Analysis of ECSS abstracts (1996–2014)” by Robert Hriskovski, Aleksandar Aceski, Natalia Balagué, Ludovic Seifert, Aleksandar Tufekcievski and Cecilia Aguirre examines 21998 ECSS abstracts grouped in 12 topics. First, a structural analysis shows the co-existence of multidisciplinary approaches (different theories, data acquisitions techniques and modes of inquiry used to study a given phenomenon) and of unifactorial approaches (a given theory, data acquisition technique or mode of inquiry used to study several phenomena). In this framework, methodological unifying tendencies are found as dominant, and theoretical integrative tendencies, much more uncommon. Secondly, a dynamic textual analysis leads to the determination of, and distinction between, concepts whose consequences are short or long term in their effects. This analysis reveals at the sport science level, a dynamic structure of concepts with stable themes or sub-themes (specific to a given topic) and contingent specific concepts. A circular causality characterises the interrelations between these themes, sub-themes and contingent concepts, allowing both conservative and innovative tendencies. The strength of the constraint exerted by the thematic skeleton is found to be stronger in certain areas (Physiology, Biomechanics, Health and Fitness and Nutrition) than in others (Physical Education and Pedagogics, Sociology and Coaching), which suggests the existence of a metastable adaptative system where tendencies towards integration and autonomy coexist. Finally, such a dynamic leads to consider a possible development of top-down causality research in addition to the dominant bottom-up causality approach, which may contribute to the unification of sport science.

Interdisciplinarity is often discussed as a significant element of sport science. The results of an investigation conducted in four European Sport Science Research Centres applying interdisciplinarity self-consciously in their work are presented in the third article entitled “Forms of interdisciplinarity in four sport science research centres in Europe” by Jean Camy, Patrick Fargier, Claire Perrin and Alain Belli. Four main dimensions, called “forms” of interdiciplinarity, were investigated: the “scientific” (epistemic), “organisational”, “academic” (institutional) and “societal”. Globally, the centres present quite similar combinations of forms, with dominant roles in the construction of interdisciplinarity played by the organisational and societal forms. The scientific form, which covers the (mostly implicit) epistemological orientations and policies given to the research centres, is never quite supported by a shared or unified epistemological commitment and the academic form, mostly characterised by the disposition of the University towards interdisciplinarity, is influential, specifically when hostile to that kind of research. Following Klein’s (1990) classification, far from representing a robust interdiscipinarity, each may be understood more readily as occupying a multidisciplinary space. Only one of them explores interdisciplinary tracks in some of its research projects. Two other points are noteworthy. The development of a common intellectual sport science culture, and a curiosity for other disciplines than its own, are a key factor for a sustainable interdisciplinary scientific culture. Moreover, the capacity to secure long-term financial resources for interdisciplinary studies was linked to a high academic recognition for the director(s) of the research centres studied.

Interdisciplinarity could also be seen as a result of new relations between existing disciplines. The mission statement of the ECSS (http://sport-science.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=64&Itemid=84) underlines the view of sport science as an integrator of knowledge regarding human movement. Thus, it promotes development of synergies among the different scientific fields studying movement and/or sport. Against this backdrop, the fourth article, entitled “Inter-disciplinarity in sport sciences: The neuroscience example” by Patrick Fargier, Christian Collet, Moran Aidan and Raphaël Massarelli explores an area of knowledge that is supposed to be intrinsically multi and interdisciplinary. The ECSS has itself raised concerns about the heterogeneity of sport science in many of its organisational forums such as Scientific Committee and the Executive Committee. Influenced by the apparent homogeneity of neuroscience, the authors review three important research topics in sport from a neuroscientific perspective. These topics concern the relationship between (i) mind and motor action; (ii) the effects of cognition on motor performance; and (iii) the study of certain mental states (e.g. “flow”) and motor control issues (e.g. understanding the neural substrates of the vertical jump squat). In the case of mental imagery, this short review shows that applied models coming from sport science may contribute to the production of a corpus of knowledge helping, in turn to the theorisation of more complex concepts in the field. The examination of the studies related to the no-think and/or to the control of the push-off of a vertical squat jump shows the interest to develop collaborations among psychologists, experts in biomechanics, in physics, in muscle physiology, in neuroscience …  to better understand sport performance. Based on this review, the authors argue that by adopting an interdisciplinary paradigm, sport science can emulate neuroscience in becoming a more monolithic discipline.

These articles mostly consider the evolution and current situation of sport science in Europe. The proceeding ones are more concerned with a critical examination of perspectives for sport science. Entitled “Sport science integration. Utopia, revolution or evolution”, the aim of the fifth article by Natalia Balagué, Carlota Torrents, Robert Hristovski and J. A. Scott Kelso is to show that sport science integration is not a utopia but a consequence of the evolution of sport science in Europe. Generally speaking, common principles among apparently unrelated disciplines emerge when focusing on the dynamics of sports-related phenomena. Dynamical systems approaches, that have recently changed the research picture in biological and social sciences among others, offer key concepts to create a common language in sport science. After defining the dynamic integration in living systems, which cannot wholly be captured by mechanistic approaches, the authors show the commonalities between the diversity of processes dwelling on different levels and time scales in biological and social entities. They discuss some recent scientific contributions that use the same theory and concepts, not just methods and techniques, to study different type of phenomena in diverse disciplines. In particular, they show how the introduction of the dynamic paradigm in sport science has started to destabilise the boundaries between physiology, biomechanics, psychology and sociology. The advantages and difficulties of sport science integration and its consequences in research are also discussed.

The sixth and final article entitled “ECSS’s vision of sport science: Some epistemological and professional challenges” is a critical philosophical commentary on the rise of European sport science under the aegis and vision of the ECSS by Sigmund Loland and Mike McNamee. They show how differences in nomenclature identifying the field (such as “Sport Science”, “Sport and Exercise Sciences”, “Kinesiology”) reflect particular assumptions or presuppositions about the nature and methods of science, and the hierarchies among them. The authors sketch the epistemological and professional contours of three paradigms that are constitutive of sport science under the original vision of the ECSS: (i) mechanistic; (ii) hermeneutic; and (iii) critical. They then discuss from a philosophical perspective the possibilities and challenges of multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and integrative approaches. They conclude with a plea for paradigmatic tolerance and a recognition of the need for epistemically relevant criteria to be used in the evaluation of alternative scientific approaches in sports.

In this special issue, we have undertaken an analysis of the situation of sport science in Europe – under the aspect of the ECSS – and of some of the perspectives open to ensure them a promising future. We invite further and more comprehensive analyses, keeping a self-critical and reflective eye on how the sciences continue to develop in our shared field of knowledge. But this is challenge for the new generation of researchers choosing sport science and its development as their central professional concern.

Notes

1. At that time, Prof. Sigmund Loland.

2. Two references to illustrate that field: Bloor, Barnes, and Henry (1996) and Latour (1987).

3. Four oral communications were presented in a dedicated session in ECSS congress Malmö 2015 presenting preliminary results.