I am Rebecca Dany from Cologne, Germany. I studied Sociology, Social and Economic Psychology and graduated from the master’s program in July. I am interested in sports research and have already worked in sport sociology. Accordingly, my research background is the social and psychological sector. InnoSportLab was the perfect way to broaden my horizon and be able to do sports research that goes beyond the field I now so far. I saw taking part in the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs program as my chance to experience applied sports science research, something that I think would not have been possible in any other way.
So far, it was fascinating to compare the approaches used in sports science, some of which differ significantly from what I had previously encountered in the field of sociology of sport as well as in my university studies. It is really helpful to be shown different ways research can take shape. This is also one of my biggest take-aways so far; seeing that there is not one right way to do research.
I think that understanding this diversity of research is also what I will help me to further develop my own business idea. The situation is the same; my idea is again more in the psychological and social field, but I can see already how getting input from a different field helps me to adopt new perspectives and, as a result, come up with new and different ideas than before.
Before, the research I have done was in many different sports, as it was meant to get insights from high-performance sports, not yet differentiating between sports. Since I have been an athlete (swimmer) myself for many years, it is a big extra motivation to be able to research in the sport to which I have a strong personal connection. I particularly appreciate the opportunity to take on additional tasks and gain hands-on experience in swimming science.
What I look forward to is that I will gain much more insight and gather many more impressions over the next weeks, once the summer is over, athletes are back in training and new data collection processes and projects will be taken on. It makes me feel like this is just the start of an exchange that will broaden my thinking in a lasting way.