This critical project, outlined in the Australian Sports Commission’s 2021-25 Corporate Plan, will provide a national focus on priority areas of research for sporting organisations, academics, researchers, research funding bodies, and governments across Australia.

Sport Australia will work alongside its sport sector partners to provide a national focus and give greater visibility to the research effort in Australian sport. This work will help to coordinate and identify research opportunities and priorities, for both high performance and community sport at all levels across the sector. The NSRA will play an important role in expanding the evidence base for sport.

The groundwork to deliver the initiative has already commenced, including the early formation of a cross-industry steering group to develop the scope of the NSRA to ensure consensus on the sport sector’s research priorities.

The NSRA will make the knowledge gaps and delivery challenges in Australian sport visible to our nation’s smartest minds. It will play a leading role in fostering cross-industry partnerships and attracting new investment in sport research.

Importantly, the NSRA will support the ASC’s broader vision for innovation in Australian sport.

Building on the great cross-sector work achieved to date, the NSRA will be activated and delivered through the Clearinghouse for Sport, including the development of a national register of active research, and activation of the new evidence produced through the Clearinghouse for Sport’s various dissemination channels, including the Daily Sports News.

More information about this exciting initiative and how sport, government and academic organisations can play an important role in helping to activate the NSRA will be released in the coming months.