Rate My Professor Andy Smith

Professor Andy Smith holds the position of Professor of Sport, Education and Mental Health at Edge Hill University, Faculty of Education. He is Director of the Centre for Mental Health, Sport and Physical Activity, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Education, and Head of the Department of Secondary and Further Education. Smith earned his PhD from the University of Liverpool in 2006, MA in Sociology of Sport from the University of Leicester in 2002, and BSc in Sports Studies from the University of Staffordshire in 2001. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Before joining Edge Hill University in September 2012 as Associate Head of Department and Professor of Sport and Physical Activity, he served as Reader in the Sociology of Sport at the University of Chester from 2006 to 2012. At Edge Hill, he supervises postgraduate and PhD students and manages the Department of Secondary and Further Education.

Smith's research centres on the intersections between sport, education, and mental health across local communities, educational settings, and professional sport environments. His work investigates place-based and systems-level approaches to narrowing mental health inequalities and fostering positive mental health. He is co-author of five books, including The Routledge Handbook of Youth Sport with Ken Green. Key publications include 'The sociology of sports work, emotions and mental health: scoping the field and future directions' (2017, Sociology of Sport Journal), 'A political spectator sport or policy priority? A review of sport, physical activity and public mental health policy' (2016, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics), 'We Don’t Need No Education? Exploring the Educational Experiences of Young Footballers' (2018, British Journal of Sociology of Education), 'Sport policy, sports development and figurational sociology' (2018), and 'Education, Physical Education and Physical Activity Promotion' (2017). He holds editorial positions with Frontiers in Sociology (since 2019), European Physical Education Review (since 2019), Leisure Studies (since 2018), and Sociology of Sport Journal (since 2017). Smith's research has influenced policy, including the UK Select Committee’s Suicide Prevention report (2017), Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson’s Duty of Care in Sport Review (2017), and the government policy brief Moving for Mental Health, which he co-authored with Dr Florence Kinnafick and Dr Eva Rogers. His contributions have informed community and professional sport and health organisations. Awards include the Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community at the 2016 Times Higher Education Awards, silver medal at the 2020 Sports Business Awards, Mental Health and Wellbeing award at the 2022 Educate North Awards, and the 2022 Tackling Health Inequalities award from the NIHR ARC North West Research and Innovation Awards. He leads funded projects such as Arts4Us and initiatives on mental health interventions in primary care.