This page will be developed as elements of the programme are confirmed during the winter of 2025/2026. Latest page update: 28 Jan 2026
In 2026 we have four keynote addresses in our programme: Beyond Boundaries, Introductory, Bill Taylor Memorial and ‘Rising Star’.
Beyond Boundaries Keynote Address
At CRiC, we look both within and beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries in research and practice to advance our understanding. This keynote address is intended to challenge the conventional or ‘taken-for-granted’ in coaching. It does so by giving a platform to distinguished critical friends who engage with methods, theory and practice with potential enriching relevance for the CRiC community. This is not to ignore or disregard existing work, but to redirect, reconstruct, redefine or conceptually adapt what we already know. As we seek to develop novel horizons for critical sports coaching research and ensure that its contributions ‘live’ meaningfully in the wider world, this thought-provoking keynote helps to ensure that differing perspectives shape the future and move us to action.
Since 2025, we have invited distinguished critical thought leaders from beyond and beside sports coaching research to reflect upon and further develop CRiC’s commitment to cutting-edge scholarship.
Alumni:
2025 Professor Håkan Larsson
2026 Beyond Boundaries Keynote
For 2026, we are delighted to welcome Prof. Kitrina Douglas
Introducing herself, she writes: My research spans the arts, humanities and social sciences coalescing around identity, transitions and mental health. With David Carless I have carried out research for organisations including the Department of Health, Addiction Recovery Agency, Royal British Legion, Women’s Sports Foundation, UK Sport, and NHS Primary Mental Health Care Trusts. Our research practice includes video/ethnography, storytelling, song-writing, performance, narrative methodologies and narrative. My best thinking occurs when I’m baking, running, walking by the ocean or sitting on a surfboard waiting for a wave. I hold a professorship in Narrative and Performative Research in the School of Social and Human science at the University of West London.
Kitrina’s University of West London Researcher Page
University of Stirling Introductory Keynote Address
As the host institution of the 8th CRiC International Conference, we were keen to bring the conference into the Stirling context. To this end we have invited Professor Richard Haynes to kick off the 2026 conference with a Keynote entitled: Fae Raploch to Elland Road: The Making of Billy Bremner
He was labelled by John Arnott in the Sunday Times as “Ten stones of barbed wire”, but one of Scotland’s greatest players Billy Bremner began his footballing life as a kid on the streets of Raploch, a deprived housing estate in the shadow of Stirling Castle. Based on oral testimony from his peers and archival research this keynote reflects on Bremner’s sporting journey as a young boy from ’The Raploch’ in the immediate post-war years to a professional football career with Leeds United in the early-1960s. It explores how Bremner’s environment, hours of dedicated street football and opportunities to play football against older and physically tougher opponents helped forge his natural athletic ability into one of the greatest Scottish players of his generation.
2026 Introductory Keynote
Richard Haynes is Professor of Media Sport in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Stirling. His principal research interests focus on the inter-relationships between sport, the media and popular culture. His latest book is Streaming the Formula One Rivalry: Sport in the Platform Age written with Raymond Boyle (Peter Lang, 2024) and is currently series editor for Communication, Sport and Society for publisher Peter Lang. Richard also works closely with sport and heritage organisations on sporting heritage projects. These include: Commonwealth Games Scotland; the Scottish Football Museum; the Bill McLaren Foundation; the Scottish Football Supporters Association; the British Library; National Library of Scotland; and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. He leads the Sport and Culture Research Group a peer support network of postgraduate research students, early-career researchers and sport heritage practitioners in Scotland. He is an Associate Member of the Leverhulme Centre for the Sciences of Place and Memory based at the University of Stirling and currently leads on an intergenerational research project on golf, place and memory.
Bill Taylor Memorial Keynote Address
Dr. William (Bill) Taylor died in 2023 leaving an exemplary legacy as an author, pedagogue and practitioner. As a founding member of the Cluster for Research into Coaching (CRiC), Bill was a driving force behind the critical coaching agenda. He made significant contributions to our community not only through his writing, programme leadership and his editorial role with Sports Coaching Review, but also by championing those who, like him, sought to interrogate coaching as a dynamic, social and complex enterprise. Bill is remembered as a popular and deeply respected colleague, friend and mentor.
Since 2023, we have honoured Bill Taylor in this Memorial Keynote Address by inviting our most distinguished critical thought leaders in sports coaching research to reflect upon and further ‘set the tone’ for CRiC’s commitment to interrogative coaching scholarship. Thus the address is not only meant to honour Bill, but to consider what his thoughts would be in relation to current day coaching research and scholarship.
Alumni
2023 Professor Chris Cushion
2024 Professor Lars Tore Ronglan
2025 Professor Kenneth Aggerholm
2026 Bill Taylor Memorial Keynote
This year, we have invited Professor Don Vinson to bring the 4th Bill Taylor Memorial Keynote
Don is Professor of Sport Coaching at the University of Worcester, leading the Coach Developer and Performance Analyst Research Group. His expertise spans sport coaching, pedagogic theory, and coach developer learning, with recent research exploring Landscapes of Practice. Don is Head Coach of England U16 girls’ hockey and has coached at national premier levels. He consults for UK Sport and numerous NGBs on Olympic and Paralympic coach development programmes. A Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Don serves on international research committees and editorial boards. Passionate about sport, he also plays squash and golf and is active in his local church.
‘Rising Star’ Keynote Address
The Cluster for Research into Coaching (CRiC) is a global community for critical and insightful sports coaching research and practice. This keynote showcases the important and progressive contributions of members to such scholarship.
Intended to support notable ‘champions’ of what CRiC stands for, this keynote address gives those at the core of our community a platform from which to reflect upon their studies in sport coaching. To borrow from ethnomethodology, this is as opposed to ‘studies for’ or ‘studies about’ the activity. Such leaders thus, are invited to share their journeys and immersions in coaching scholarship, their latest thinking, in addition to future trajectories and new frontiers.
We hope that this energising keynote will raise the profile of current and future leaders in our field, whilst stimulating others to pursue innovations to drive CRiC forward.
Alumni
2024 Dr. Anna Stodter
2025 Dr. Zoë Avner
2026 Rising Star Keynote
This year we are delighted that Dr. Adam Nichol will deliver this keynote.
Adam is an Assistant Professor of sport coaching in the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle, UK. His research interests principally focus on the sociological study of (non)influence in and through sport using normative and educational theory. He has conducted internationally funded research shaping policy and practice in various sporting organisations. He holds an external examiner position at Buckinghamshire New University and is also a currently active coach and coach developer in cricket and assistant referee in football.