Welcome to the 22nd Annual Congress of the ECSS
On behalf of the three hosting institutions of the University Alliance Ruhr (UARuhr), namely the Faculty of Sport Science (Ruhr University Bochum), the Institute of Sport and Sport Science (TU Dortmund University) and the Institute of Sport and Movement Science (University Duisburg-Essen), it is our greatest pleasure to invite you to attend the 22nd annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science in MetropolisRuhr, Germany. The congress will be held between 5th and 8th July, 2017, at the Congress Centre Essen (CCE) which is easily accessible by train from Düsseldorf International Airport and well connected by local transportation services.
"Sport Science in a Metropolitan Area", as a superior conference topic, faces the tremendous challenges in a large and multicultural population centre, including the broad range from Inactivity to intense physical stress, the trend of increased Individuality in lifestyle and physical activity, as well as the Inclusion of minorities. Historically, some high-performance sports, such as professional football, have been an important key to strengthen the people’s Identification with our region. These specific challenges will run as a thread through the congress and will be taken up by the plenary talks, oral and poster presentations and symposia.
Our mission as experts in Sport Science, working within MetropolisRuhr, is to explore scientifically some of these challenges and issues. We approach them from an interdisciplinary perspective, including humanities, natural sciences and medicine, and we teach them with a very practical orientation. Research-based learning is a guiding principle in all Bachelor and Master Programs. By that, we ensure the best transfer of knowledge for our students, who will soon be responsible for our future society.
As young investigators are the future key-players in Sport Science research, the ECSS MetropolisRuhr 2017 will specifically attract and very warmly welcome highly motivated early stage researchers from all over the world, provide instructional workshops and satellites and bring them together with top experts in all different fields of Sport Science. We also aim at offering researchers a platform for presenting and discussing their very recent findings with their colleagues, in order to create or stabilize networks, and - overall – to ensure that relevant findings will be beneficial for our society.
A congress is not only a place for transfer of knowledge but also for learning about the host country and its people. In the area of MetropolisRuhr, there has been a huge transformation from an area of coal mining and steel production to a modern metropolis of the 21st century. Our region is famous for its social diversity, a fusion of industrial history and trendy culture and numeral recreational and high-performance sporting activities. In direct neighbourhood to CCE, one can find the famous “Grugapark” offering a botanical garden with rare and beautiful plants, an attractive safari park, a health facility and spa, and a gastronomic place that invites you to get together in several stylish restaurants. The illuminated main path is perfect for doing your own recreational activities, like running or walking, and in a just five minutes’ walk you can reach the popular dining and nightlife area “Rüttenscheider Straße”, where local pubs invite you to linger after a long and busy congress day. If you like to learn more about Germany, we will recommend you to visit the city of Cologne and other spots in the region of North-Rhine Westphalia, as well as some of the most famous touristic places somewhere else in Germany, like the Alps in the south, the Wadden Sea in the north, or the manifold attractions of our pulsatile capital Berlin.
We look very much forward to seeing you all in MetropolisRuhr in 2017.
Petra Platen and Alexander Ferrauti
Presidents, 22nd Annual ECSS Congress
