Our Research Themes
Our research spans several interconnected themes that help us understand and support how humans adapt to stress and perform under pressure.
We explore how people respond and adapt to stressful, demanding, and uncertain environments. Our research examines psychological responses to challenge, individual differences in coping and resilience, and factors that support wellbeing and resilient performance.
We work across settings including sport, defence and security, and extreme environments.
We examine how people respond to traumatic and adverse experiences and the factors that support recovery and adaptation. Our research includes trauma exposure, burnout, compassion fatigue, and post-traumatic growth.
Working with helping professionals, police officers, people exposed to interpersonal adversity, and individuals affected by traumatic events.
We explore how identity, inclusion, and social context influence wellbeing and performance, with a focus on issues including gender, neurodiversity, mental health, and sexism.
Our research considers experiences across elite and academy sport, sports professionals, students, and other performance settings.
We investigate the relationship between sleep, stress, wellbeing, and recovery. We are interested in how sleep supports psychological functioning, recovery, and adaptation.
Our research examines sleep and insomnia in general adult populations and people exposed to traumatic experiences, including adolescents and adults followed over time.
We apply psychological and behavioural science to understand and influence how people respond to stress, challenge, and difficult experiences. Our research includes psychological interventions, therapeutic games, simulations, and behavioural approaches.
We work with young people, athletes, professionals, and people experiencing psychological or performance-related challenges.
We investigate biological markers of stress and adaptation and how they relate to psychological wellbeing and performance. Our research includes neuropeptide Y (NPY) and other physiological indicators of stress responses, examining their potential role in understanding resilience and performance under demanding conditions.
This work spans police, military, space, and other extreme or high-pressure environments, helping us understand how biological responses to stress relate to human adaptation.
We explore how technology and innovative methods can help us understand and support wellbeing, behaviour, and performance. Our research includes serious games developed for use in schools, wearable technologies for monitoring stress and cognitive performance, and other digital approaches.
We work with school pupils, athletes, and people operating in demanding environments, using technology to develop engaging, practical approaches to understanding and supporting human adaptation.
We examine how workplace environments, social relationships, stress, wellbeing, and performance interact. We use approaches including social network analysis and space analogue studies to understand how working conditions, rest, social relationships, and team dynamics influence wellbeing and performance.
Our research spans workplace settings, sport, defence and security, and space analogue environments, including employees, sports coaches, and teams operating in demanding conditions.