About the Project
Funded PhD Studentship to work with the England Blind Football Teams to describe the magnitude, frequency, and severity of head impacts
Are you ready to shape the future of player welfare for this exciting sport, in preparation for the Los Angeles Paralympics?
This prestigious PhD studentship offers a rare opportunity to work directly with world-leading experts within blind football and head impact monitoring and assessment. Your research will help drive transformative change to understand head impact exposure, with the potential to change head injury management protocols in a global sport.
In this exciting collaboration between the Football Association and the Carnegie School of Sport at Leeds Beckett University, we are seeking an ambitious and passionate researcher to join a project with real-world impact. The research project will also involve world-leading experts from Imperial College London. During the 3-year funded PhD studentship, you will be part of a vibrant research community working across a range of sports to quantify and reduce head injuries, improving player safety, and enhancing player performance.
The Carnegie School of Sport at Leeds Beckett University is purposefully driven to make a difference to people, communities and organisations through collaborative research and knowledge exchange. Our culture is founded upon a genuine commitment and capacity to work with others on real-world applied problems to achieve impact beyond academia. From our work examining head impacts and concussion, talent development systems and ethical coaching, to our research tackling gender equality, threats to sporting integrity and obesity, we are generating transdisciplinary knowledge to address some of the key issues facing our communities today.
We are offering one funded PhD from 1 October 2026.
The primary research location will be at the Carnegie School of Sport (LS6 3QS), but the role may require travel for data collection.
Project Overview
During blind football, rates of head impacts have been reported as over 1 per min (Tsutsumi et al., 2023), and the head, face and neck are the second highest incidence of all injuries (Runciman et al., 2026). Blind football players have also been shown to have some difference in head kinematics during laboratory-based trials, in comparison to non-disabled football players (Ivanic et al., 2026).
The magnitude of head impacts during a blind football match in both male and female players is currently unknown. In addition, the clinical significance has also not been investigated. Using an observational research design, it is possible to describe the kinematics of head impacts, as well as the associated mechanism using validated instrumented mouthguards (iMG) (Jones et al., 2022; Tooby et al., 2024; Wu et al., 2016) and video analysis (Tooby et al., 2025). This can be undertaken during both matches and training. In addition, following standardised clinical assessments for a sports related concussion, it is possible to establish associations between head kinematics and clinical signs and symptoms. Finally, the project will involve sharing head kinematic data with Imperial College London to undertake advanced computational analysis to identify specific brain regions of interest during head impacts, using finite element brain models (Ghajari et al., 2017).
The core-research team is Prof. Ben Jones and Dr James Tooby (Leeds Beckett University), and Mat Jones (FA and CMO IBSA Football).
The project will involve a wider team of collaborators, including Dr James Brown (Leeds Beckett University), Dr Mazdak Ghajari (Imperial College London) and Dr Osman Ahmed and Cath Gilby (FA).
- Applicants are encouraged to discuss their proposals with B.Jones@leedsbeckett.ac.uk or J.Tooby@leedsbeckett.ac.uk
- Application Reference Number: 2026-October-THE FA/CSS-PhD
- Start Date: 01 October 2026
- Mode of Study: Full-Time (3yrs)
- Number of Opportunities Available: 1
- Interviews to take place from: 14 September 2026 to 18 September 2026
For details on how to apply please visit the Leeds Beckett University website.
Funding Notes
This studentship includes:
- Research support funding for project-related activities
- Access to world-class facilities at the Carnegie School of Sport
- A laptop will be provided
International candidates will be required to pay the international fee top up and are advised to contact our Research Admissions team at researchadmissions@leedsbeckett.ac.uk
Type of Funding Available: Home (UK) Fees and Stipend
Stipend Value: £21,805
Stipends are tax-free and paid pro-rata in monthly payments
References
- Ghajari, M., Hellyer, P.J., Sharp, D.J., 2017. Computational modelling of traumatic brain injury predicts the location of chronic traumatic encephalopathy pathology. Brain 140, 333–343. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/aww317
- Ivanic, B., Ageberg, E., Ryan, N., Derman, W., Runciman, P., Lexell, J., Fagher, K., 2026. Head acceleration in blind football players: a laboratory-based exploratory study. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2026.03.007
- Jones, B., Tooby, J., Weaving, D., Till, K., Owen, C., Begonia, M., Stokes, K.A., Rowson, S., Phillips, G., Hendricks, S., Falvey, É.C., Al-Dawoud, M., Tierney, G., 2022. Ready for impact? A validity and feasibility study of instrumented mouthguards (iMGs). Br J Sports Med bjsports-2022-105523. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2022-105523
- Runciman, P., Rademan, V., Boer, P., Fagher, K., Ahmed, O.H., Derman, W., 2026. Injury patterns in blind football: a cohort analysis from three Paralympic games (London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020). Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2026.03.008
- Tooby, J., Rowson, S., Till, K., Allan, D., Bussey, M.D., Cazzola, D., Falvey, É., Friesen, K., Gardner, A.J., Owen, C., Roe, G., Sawczuk, T., Starling, L., Stokes, K., Tierney, G., Tucker, R., Jones, B., 2025. Optimising Instrumented Mouthguard Data Analysis: Video Synchronisation Using a Cross-correlation Approach. Ann Biomed Eng 53, 923–933. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-025-03679-1
- Tooby, J., Till, K., Gardner, A., Stokes, K., Tierney, G., Weaving, D., Rowson, S., Ghajari, M., Emery, C., Bussey, M.D., Jones, B., 2024. When to Pull the Trigger: Conceptual Considerations for Approximating Head Acceleration Events Using Instrumented Mouthguards. Sports Med 54, 1361–1369. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-024-02012-5
- Tsutsumi, S., Sasadai, J., Maeda, N., Shimizu, R., Suzuki, A., Fukui, K., Arima, S., Tashiro, T., Kaneda, K., Yoshimi, M., Mizuta, R., Ishihara, H., Esaki, H., Tsuchida, K., Terada, T., Komiya, M., Urabe, Y., 2023. Head Impact in Blind Football During the Tokyo Paralympics: Video-Based Observational Study. Am J Phys Med Rehabil 102, 836–839. https://doi.org/10.1097/PHM.0000000000002187
- Wu, L.C., Nangia, V., Bui, K., Hammoor, B., Kurt, M., Hernandez, F., Kuo, C., Camarillo, D.B., 2016. In Vivo Evaluation of Wearable Head Impact Sensors. Ann Biomed Eng 44, 1234–1245. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-015-1423-3
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