Science

We have all come across dystopian visions of a bad future, like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Less familiar is the practice of bad futurism, often hidden inside seemingly compelling stories, which promises an absurd tomorrow based on foolhardy assumptions about the present. It was my pursuit of the latter that brought me to a packed convention hall at the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, UK, in August to watch an all-star panel of authors and critics discussing “techno-Orientalism”. As I discovered, however, this idea goes far beyond fiction; it has…

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have revealed new details about Earth’s core-mantle boundary and similar regions found in exoplanets.

The team, led by Guillaume Morard, a scientist at the University of Grenoble and Sorbonne University in France, used SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser to investigate the behavior of molten rock under extreme conditions. The results were published in Nature Communications.

“This study marks a significant advance in our understanding of the Earth’s deep interior,” said collaborator and SLAC senior scientist Arianna Gleason. “The findings underscore the potential of advanced X-ray techniques to reveal the hidden secrets of our planet and beyond.”

About 1,800 miles below Earth’s surface lies a roiling region of magma sandwiched between the solid silicate-based mantle and the molten iron-rich core: the core-mantle boundary. It’s a remnant of olden times, about 4.3 to 4.5 billion years ago, when the entire planet was molten. Although the region’s extreme pressures and temperatures make it challenging to study, it contains clues about Earth’s origin story and insight into the planet’s internal processes.

To overcome this challenge, the researchers used advanced X-ray techniques to re-create the conditions expected in the mid to lower mantle of exoplanets two to three times the size of Earth. By using hard X-rays with higher energy levels than previously possible, researchers could see how atoms in the molten rock were arranged. The team also used computer simulations to compare with the experimental data, providing a comprehensive view of the molten silicates’ properties.

One surprising result was about the role of iron in molten rock. Despite expectations, varying the iron content did not significantly change the rock’s density. This finding is particularly relevant to our understanding of Earth’s formation, where the surface was once molten rock and the density difference between crystalline and molten materials significantly influenced the planet’s development.

The study also suggests that this atomic response to compression can change the properties of melts at the pressures expected to be found in the magma oceans of super-Earths, exoplanets with masses nearly three times larger than that of Earth. This could potentially impact their early development differently from smaller rocky planets, such as Earth and Venus in our solar system

The research highlights the importance of advanced experimental tools for studying high-pressure and high-temperature conditions. The team hopes their findings will lead to further development of these tools, opening new research avenues in Earth and planetary sciences.

“Now that we know we can get this quality of data and reach these conditions, we want to push further into exoplanet regimes,” Gleason said. “The ability to generate pressures equivalent to three times Earth’s mantle conditions is exciting. It extends our understanding of silicate properties under extreme conditions, which is crucial for both Earth and exoplanet studies.”

For centuries, the Roncal Valley, in the Navarrese Pyrenees, has pleased the world’s palates through the unique cheese that bears its name. The first Spanish cheese to receive Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status, Roncal owes its signature piquant bouquet to a closely guarded production process, which has historically used the milk of an indigenous breed of sheep called the latxa. This breed, named after the Basque word for “sour,” is productive enough to satisfy the artisanal needs of the local cheese-making industry.

Problems arose, however, when some family farms in adjoining villages began importing assaf sheep from Israel, which could yield more—about seven times more—milk with far less labor. From a profit-driven perspective, replacing the homely latxa with the powerhouse assaf would appear a no-brainer.

Indeed, the Roncal Regulatory Council, with strong representation by the cheese processors, successfully appealed to the European Union to open the PDO to include cheese produced with assaf milk. But the farmers of Roncal protested, winning the next Council elections, and successfully lobbied the EU to rescind the inclusion of assaf milk.

On the surface, centuries-old cheese-making traditions in a remote valley in northern Spain might seem worlds apart from modern business practice. But Sarah Wittman, assistant professor of management at the Donald G. Costello College of Business at George Mason University, argues that the Roncal farmers represent a common type of organizational activity overlooked by past researchers.

Her recent paper in Organizational Theory, co-authored by Frédéric Godart of INSEAD, investigates what motivates “purist” organizations, like the Roncal cheese artisans, for whom success is not entirely defined by market-driven metrics.

Speaking of the world-renowned Trappist monks, who brew what many claim is the best-tasting beer in the world out of monasteries in Belgium and the Netherlands, Wittman explains, “They’re not doing it because they’re in the market. They’re doing it because that’s what enables them to be monks.”

At the same time, they take great pride in their ales because the quality of their product is bound up with their religious vocation. Wittman summarizes their working ethos as, “I brew beer as a religious object, and I’m going to give everything to it because this is my religious task.”

Purists, then, march to a very different drummer than more “rational,” or conventional, organizations. Instead of crafting a brand identity to woo consumers, purists find fulfillment through activity that affirms their firmly held sense of self. While they will go to great lengths to preserve their purity when it is threatened, they will not take a single step that would possibly compromise their integrity.

Wittman’s paper teases out how purism can affect organizational structure, strategy and success. The researchers posit that a compartmentalized structure may emerge within larger organizations, whereby pockets of purism are allowed to exist amid more conventionally motivated businesses. An example would be the most innovative R&D units at 3M, which are largely insulated from market pressures so as to safeguard their creativity.

The researchers further theorize that because purists’ real motivation—affirming their sense of identity—often has little to do with the business they happen to be in (e.g. monks brewing beer), purists are more likely to be game-changers in their field, rather than following established industry practice.

For purists to be successful in the marketplace, they need to find an appreciative audience that doesn’t mistake their scruples for snobbery. Tastemakers in relevant fields, whose refined sensibilities respond well to purism, can make a big difference by conferring higher status upon purists. This, in turn, can help influence the opinions of consumers, shareholders, etc.

Additionally, purists can let their results speak for them, as with the Trappist monks. Ordinary beer-drinkers may or may not care about the monks’ religious devotion, but will nonetheless pay a premium for a beverage that meets the highest taste standards.

However, purists can attract contempt if their way of working is seen to conflict with basic norms that the audience holds dear. ESG investment funds which follow a social rather than capitalist logic, for example, have alienated some in the conventional finance world for upholding a set of standards perceived to deviate from the core task of making money. One could imagine that an NGO whose purism centered around chasing big-money donors instead of providing services would be condemned just as readily.

Wittman hopes her research will widen the scope of conversations around the organizational mission and meaningful work. “We cannot explain everything with this market-economy survival motive, because there exists a logic outside of that.

“What we most often study (and teach) in business schools is that everyone succumbs to the market and plays the competitive positioning game or goes out of business. But if purists have enough power, gain enough status, then there is this bolstering of support that says either they’re legitimate or they’re authentic—then they’re the ones who create the market.”

Blushing chickens

People — humans — blush. Chickens aren’t entirely inhuman in that they, too, show emotions on their facial skin. Delphine Soulet at the University of Tours, France, and colleagues have explored how skin redness might be a reliable indicator of “the affective states of hens”. Reader Frédéric Darboux brought the project to Feedback’s attention.

This is the story, to the extent it is a story, of six hens in a wooded outdoor range covered with grass. They had free access to a hen house and to as much water and feed as they wanted, whenever they wanted it.

This is a story, also, that was essentially a reality TV programme. The chickens were given no script to follow. But they were placed in situations that almost forced them to react in ways that would induce compelling video viewing.

The adventure stretched over three consecutive summer weeks. Among the main events: a “Capture Test” that involved “individual hens being caught by the experimenter, who restrained the wings with two hands”. The hens also found themselves involved in a “Rewarding Test” that involved a glass dish containing mealworms and wood shavings “placed in the middle of the test arena”.

The researchers captured video of “calm states”: resting, preening or feeding. Other footage showed “exciting and rewarding states”: dustbathing and exposure to mealworms. Inevitably, there were also “fear-related states”, most notably seen in the Capture Test.

The colourful data came from a process of “extracting redness from still frames from hen profiles”. In the old days, before digital technology was available for chicken-emotion research, this might have been a matter of subjective artistic appraisal. The 2020s method removes human emotion from that aspect of the data gathering. Electronic video processing extracted “the mean red (R), blue (B), and green (G) values for each bare skin region of the hen face (comb, cheek, ear lobe and wattle)”.

After analysing the data from the videos, the scientists reached a conclusion as to when the chickens had blushed most strongly. The hens, says the final report, “exhibited the highest degree of facial skin redness in negative situations of high arousal”.

Eclectically smectic

If, somehow, your interests are eclectic and you are cathectic (but not apoplectic) about exploring words that rhyme with dialectic, try “smectic” – as in the title of the study “Smectic and soap bubble optofluidic lasers“.

Written by Zala Korenjak and Matjaž Humar in a journal with the intriguing name Physical Review X, that paper explains how it doesn’t take much to make a soap bubble become a laser.

Or, for a mildly jolly burst of melancholy, reach back to 1987 for P. Oswald’s treatise in Journal de Physique, “Dynamics of collapse of a smectic bubble“.

Tending towards entropy

Physics often gets portrayed as a field so abstruse that most people can’t understand or directly use it. A new study called “The principle of entropy increase: A novel view of how tourism influences human health” shows how wrong some people feel that notion might be.

The researchers write: “The principle of ‘entropy increase’ is a universal law describing a natural progression from order to disorder. This paper is innovatively the first to take the principle as a theoretical basis for assessing how tourism influences human health from a sociomateriality perspective”.

Back in 2000, a collaboration between physicists in Italy, Brazil and the US tried to make sense of a different and borderline-unruly aspect of the concept of entropy increase. They published a paper called “The rate of entropy increase at the edge of chaos“.

Tourism professionals both do and don’t like tourism to happen at the edge of chaos: they do for the excitement, but don’t for the danger, the danger being both corporeal and financial. Too much entropy over too short a period could intensify both kinds of danger.

A press release about the new tourism research does note that “Entropy is classified as the general trend of the universe towards death and disorder”. But other than that, the press release accentuates the positive. It says: “For the first time, an interdisciplinary study has applied the theory of entropy to tourism, finding that travel could have positive health benefits, including slowing down the signs of ageing.”

In theory – in this theory – people might believe that principles of physics, adroitly deployed, can help a person delay seeing wrinkles. Raise this to a literary plane, Feedback muses, and it becomes a reminder to read Madeleine L’Engle’s sci-fi novel A Wrinkle in Time.

That book’s plot involves travel. That book’s publication was reputedly delayed by publishers’ indecision as to whether the story was meant for adults or children.

Pointy reckoning

A couple more additions to Feedback’s collection of conversation-starting titles of research papers.

“Sword swallowing and its side effects” gave incisive knowledge to subscribers of BMJ in 2006, while “Estimation of the total saliva volume produced per day in five-year-old children” supplied some fast and, in some respects, hard numbers to readers of the Archives of Oral Biology in 1995.

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The ancient Maya believed that everything in the universe, from the natural world to everyday experiences, was part of a single, powerful spiritual force. They were not polytheists who worshipped distinct gods but pantheists who believed that various gods were just manifestations of that force.

Some of the best evidence for this comes from the behavior of two of the most powerful beings of the Maya world: The first is a creator god whose name is still spoken by millions of people every fall—Huracán, or “Hurricane.” The second is a god of lightning, K’awiil, from the early first millennium C.E.

As a scholar of the Indigenous religions of the Americas, I recognize that these beings, though separated by over 1,000 years, are related and can teach us something about our relationship to the natural world.

Huracán, the ‘Heart of Sky’

Huracán was once a god of the K’iche,’ one of the Maya peoples who today live in the southern highlands of Guatemala. He was one of the main characters of the Popol Vuh, a religious text from the 16th century. His name probably originated in the Caribbean, where other cultures used it to describe the destructive power of storms.

The K’iche’ associated Huracán, which means “one leg” in the K’iche’ language, with weather. He was also their primary god of creation and was responsible for all life on earth, including humans.

Because of this, he was sometimes known as U K’ux K’aj, or “Heart of Sky.” In the K’iche’ language, k’ux was not only the heart but also the spark of life, the source of all thought and imagination.

Yet, Huracán was not perfect. He made mistakes and occasionally destroyed his creations. He was also a jealous god who damaged humans so they would not be his equal. In one such episode, he is believed to have clouded their vision, thus preventing them from being able to see the universe as he saw it.

Huracán was one being who existed as three distinct persons: Thunderbolt Huracán, Youngest Thunderbolt and Sudden Thunderbolt. Each of them embodied different types of lightning, ranging from enormous bolts to small or sudden flashes of light.

Despite the fact that he was a god of lightning, there were no strict boundaries between his powers and the powers of other gods. Any of them might wield lightning, or create humanity, or destroy the Earth.

Another storm god

The Popol Vuh implies that gods could mix and match their powers at will, but other religious texts are more explicit. One thousand years before the Popol Vuh was written, there was a different version of Huracán called K’awiil. During the first millennium, people from southern Mexico to western Honduras venerated him as a god of agriculture, lightning and royalty.

Illustrations of K’awiil can be found everywhere on Maya pottery and sculpture. He is almost human in many depictions: He has two arms, two legs and a head. But his forehead is the spark of life—and so it usually has something that produces sparks sticking out of it, such as a flint ax or a flaming torch. And one of his legs does not end in a foot. In its place is a snake with an open mouth, from which another being often emerges.

Indeed, rulers, and even gods, once performed ceremonies to K’awiil in order to try and summon other supernatural beings. As personified lightning, he was believed to create portals to other worlds, through which ancestors and gods might travel.

Representation of power

For the ancient Maya, lightning was raw power. It was basic to all creation and destruction. Because of this, the ancient Maya carved and painted many images of K’awiil. Scribes wrote about him as a kind of energy—as a god with “many faces,” or even as part of a triad similar to Huracán.

He was everywhere in ancient Maya art. But he was also never the focus. As raw power, he was used by others to achieve their ends.

Rain gods, for example, wielded him like an ax, creating sparks in seeds for agriculture. Conjurers summoned him, but mostly because they believed he could help them communicate with other creatures from other worlds. Rulers even carried scepters fashioned in his image during dances and processions.

Moreover, Maya artists always had K’awiil doing something or being used to make something happen. They believed that power was something you did, not something you had. Like a bolt of lightning, power was always shifting, always in motion.

An interdependent world

Because of this, the ancient Maya thought that reality was not static but ever-changing. There were no strict boundaries between space and time, the forces of nature or the animate and inanimate worlds.

Everything was malleable and interdependent. Theoretically, anything could become anything else—and everything was potentially a living being. Rulers could ritually turn themselves into gods. Sculptures could be hacked to death. Even natural features such as mountains were believed to be alive.

These ideas—common in pantheist societies—persist today in some communities in the Americas.

They were once mainstream, however, and were a part of K’iche’ religion 1,000 years later, in the time of Huracán. One of the lessons of the Popol Vuh, told during the episode where Huracán clouds human vision, is that the human perception of reality is an illusion.

The illusion is not that different things exist. Rather it is that they exist independent from one another. Huracán, in this sense, damaged himself by damaging his creations.

Hurricane season every year should remind us that human beings are not independent from nature but part of it. And like Hurácan, when we damage nature, we damage ourselves.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

According to Jonathan Haidt’s bestselling book The Anxious Generation, the proliferation of smartphones and subsequent exposure to social media among children and young people has harmed mental well-being, resulting in an “anxious generation”. Hence Haidt’s title.

However, a closer look at the data reveals that such thinking is aimed in the wrong direction. The meaning and causes of increased rates of anxiety in young people remain complex and unclear. But simply put, when it comes to phones and modern tech, it is often parents who are the overly anxious ones, not their children.

So much of the current discourse about…

For the first time, scientists have taken near-daily measurements of the sun’s global coronal magnetic field, a region of the sun that has only been observed irregularly in the past. The resulting observations are providing valuable insights into the processes that drive the intense solar storms that impact fundamental technologies, and thus lives and livelihoods, here on Earth.

An analysis of the data, collected over eight months by an instrument called the Upgraded Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter (UCoMP), has been published in Science.

The solar magnetic field is the primary driver of solar storms, which can pose threats to power grids, communication systems, and in-space technologies like GPS. However, our ability to understand how the magnetic field builds up energy and erupts has been limited by the challenge of observing it in the solar corona, the sun’s upper atmosphere.

Measuring the magnetism of the region through standard polarimetric methods typically requires large, expensive equipment that to date has only been able to study small segments of the corona.

However, the combined use of coronal seismology and UCoMP observations makes it possible for researchers to produce consistent and comprehensive views of the magnetic field of the global corona—the whole-sun view one sees during a solar eclipse.

“Global mapping of the coronal magnetic field has been a big missing part in the study of the sun,” said Zihao Yang, lead author who pursued this research as a Ph.D. graduate at Peking University, China, and is now a postdoctoral fellow at the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR).

“This research is helping us fill a crucial gap in our understanding of coronal magnetic fields, which are the source of the energy for storms that can impact Earth.”

The international team is made of researchers from Northumbria University, UK; NSF NCAR; Peking University, China; and University of Michigan. The UCoMP instrument and is operated by NSF NCAR at the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory.

Upgraded instrument

Although scientists have been able to routinely measure the magnetic field on the sun’s surface, known as the photosphere, it has long been difficult to measure the much dimmer coronal magnetic field. This has limited a deeper understanding of the three-dimensional structure and evolution of the magnetic field of the corona, where solar storms brew.

To measure the three-dimensional coronal magnetic fields in depth, big telescopes like NSF’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) are needed. With a 4-meter-diameter aperture, DKIST is the world’s largest solar telescope, and recently demonstrated its groundbreaking ability for making detailed observations of the coronal magnetic field.

However, DKIST is not able to map the sun all at once. The smaller UCoMP instrument is actually better-suited to give scientists global pictures of the coronal magnetic field, albeit at lower resolution and in a two-dimensional projection. The observations from both sources are thus highly complementary to a holistic view of the coronal magnetic field.

UCoMP is primarily a coronagraph, an instrument that uses a disk to block out light from the sun, similar to an eclipse, making it easier to observe the corona. It also combines a Stokes polarimeter, which images other spectral information such as coronal line intensity and Doppler velocity.

Even though UCoMP has a much smaller aperture (20 cm), it is able to take a wider view, which makes it possible to study the entire sun on most days.

The researchers applied a method called coronal seismology to track magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) transverse waves in the UCoMP data. The MHD waves gave them information that made it possible to create a two-dimensional map of the strength and direction of the coronal magnetic field.

In 2020, a previous study used UCoMP’s predecessor and the coronal seismology method to produce the first map of the global coronal magnetic field. This was a crucial step toward routine coronal magnetic field measurements. UCoMP has expanded capabilities that makes it possible to make more detailed, routine measurements.

During the UCoMP study, the research team produced 114 magnetic field maps between February and October 2022, or one almost every other day.

“We are entering a new era of solar physics research where we can routinely measure the coronal magnetic field,” said Yang.

Completing the picture

The observations also produced the first measurements of the coronal magnetic field in the polar regions. The sun’s poles have never been directly observed because the curve of the sun near the poles keeps it just beyond our view from Earth.

Though the researchers didn’t directly view the poles, for the first time they were able to take measurements of the magnetism emitting from them. This was due in part to the improved data quality provided by UCoMP and because the sun was near solar maximum. The typically weak emissions from the polar region have been much stronger, making it easier to obtain coronal magnetic field results in the polar regions.

As a postdoctoral fellow at NSF NCAR, Yang will continue his research of the sun’s magnetic field; he hopes to improve existing coronal models that are based on measurements of the photosphere. Since the current method used with UCoMP is limited to two dimensions, it still doesn’t capture the full three-dimensional magnetic field.

Yang and his colleagues hope to combine their research with other techniques to get a deeper understanding of the full vector of the magnetic field in the corona.

The third dimension of the magnetic field, oriented along a viewer’s line of sight, is of particular importance for understanding how the corona is energized leading up to a solar eruption.

Ultimately, a combination of a large telescope and a global field of view is needed to measure all the three-dimensional twists and tangles behind phenomena like solar eruptions; this is the motivation behind the proposed Coronal Solar Magnetism Observatory (COSMO), a 1.5-meter-diameter solar refracting telescope undergoing its final design study.

“Since coronal magnetism is the force that sends mass from the sun flying across the solar system, we have to observe it in 3D—and everywhere all at once, throughout the global corona,” said Sarah Gibson, COSMO Development Lead and an NSF NCAR scientist co-author on the paper.

“Yang’s work represents a huge step forward in our ability to understand how the sun’s global coronal magnetic field changes from day to day. This is critical to our ability to better predict and prepare for solar storms, which are an ever-increasing danger to our ever-more technologically dependent lives here on Earth.”

Described as “tough and uncompromising”, Grit Breakthrough Programs uses intensive group workshops and individual coaching to challenge assumptions, attitudes, and expectations, with the aim of helping participants break through self-imposed limitations and build confidence and resilience.

The charity has worked with young people and adults for more than 30 years in a range of settings, from conflict areas, such as Kosovo and Belfast, to young offenders’ institutions, schools and universities.

In 2022 Grit began to work with LA teams to challenge and change the notion that social workers operate within risk-averse mindsets, inhibiting them from using their intuition and placing relationships at the heart of what they do.

An evaluation of whether this aim has been achieved has now been carried out by researchers from the Nottingham Institute of Education, part of Nottingham Trent University.

The evaluation included in-depth interviews and focus groups with 30 Grit participants in Children’s Services team roles at three LAs, including front-line workers, middle leaders, and senior leaders. Participants were questioned shortly after the initial training and again after around 12 months.

The findings showed that Grit training led to significant personal and professional growth for most participants.

Despite being hesitant about the training, the majority had seen real changes in how they felt about their work, such as feeling calmer when under pressure, approaching problems in a new way, and an increased ability to handle difficult conversations.

They also reported that they understood themselves better and carried a self-awareness and confidence into the workplace which empowered them to better advocate for themselves and their clients.

A key element of Grit is its focus on understanding relationships and community, leading to some of the leaders feeling they’d achieved a better knowledge of how others viewed them, and of the effects their own behavior had—with their team members stating that they have since felt more valued.

Director of the Nottingham Institute of Education and lead researcher, Associate Professor Chris Rolph, said, “The evaluation found that participants had some initial reticence in terms of balancing the training with heavy workloads, and a little apprehension in taking part without really knowing what to expect.

“But while most of the participants did find it challenging, they also felt they now had a new ‘toolkit’ for their work and found this new understanding of themselves and how they think and work liberating and transformational.

“On the front line, social workers say they are more confident, more people-focused, and consequently more effective than they were before Grit.

“These findings suggest that systemic or cultural change within LA social work teams can be achieved through Grit training, both at the front line, where it supports challenging conversations based on strong relationships with young people and families; and within the organization where Grit supports openness and honesty in professional relationships.”

Grit’s Director of Development, Jon Down, said, “Although we have plenty of our own internally produced evidence of the difference our programs make, if we want to deliver at scale and grow the impact of our work, we need a robust, academically credible and independent evidence base for us to take to local authorities and other potential partners. This evaluation does just that.

“It shows how Grit can lead to a qualitative improvement in the work done by Local Authority social work teams and associated agencies, how impact is sustained over the medium term, and how it creates systemic or cultural change, both on the front line, and within organizations.

“Amidst the staff recruitment and retention crisis in Children’s Services, and local authorities more generally, it shows how our work can regenerate a collaborative ‘can-do’ culture, build resilience, bring more effective team working, impact job satisfaction and, most importantly, get better outcomes for the children and families they support.”

The tradition of the English nature writer is long, proud and distinctly genteel. Its origins lie with the pioneering 18th-century curate Gilbert White, writing from his inherited family home in Selborne, Hampshire. He features in a fine new piece of nature writing, England: A natural history (Doubleday/Transworld) when the author observes that “the parson had the time to stand and stare”.

That author, John Lewis-Stempel, also has the parson’s luxury. A successful writer with a string of nature books behind him, he explores 12 English landscapes, from the Thames estuary to…

Whether it’s a children’s soccer league run by parent volunteers or an adult hockey team whose players spend as much time socializing as shooting pucks, amateur sports play a vital role in enhancing community engagement and public health.

A new report by Brock University researchers highlights the importance of community sport groups and what can be done at the provincial level to support them.

Published last month, Provincial Sport Policy in Ontario: Trends, Issues, and Ways Forward summarizes insights from three years of research involving discussions with sport sector organizers and provincial sport organizations that govern amateur sport in the province. The report addresses community sport groups’ need for leadership and support as more responsibilities are placed on them by the provincial and federal governments as well as sport governing bodies.

These groups continue to experience challenges with sport policy that hinders their organization’s ability to carry out their mandates and reach their goals and objectives, says Associate Professor of Sport Management Kyle Rich, one of three authors of the report and lead researcher on the project.

“The sport club system in Ontario is in a precarious place that is disconnected and fragmented. We don’t have direction, and support within the system hasn’t increased with the amount of work and expectations that’s being put on those organizations,” he says.

Rich offers an example of community sport organizations being asked to prioritize “safe sport,” which involves creating athletic environments that are respectful, equitable and free from harassment and abuse.

“Safe sport initiatives are obviously very important, and to implement them well, it takes extra time, work and understanding,” he says.

“It’s a whole new way of thinking about how we structure policy and the expectations we put on sport organizations, coaches and managers. Some of these community organizations are led by parents or grandparents doing it because they want their kids to have somewhere to play; they don’t necessarily have the resources, skills or capacity to navigate these new policies, rules and regulations.”

Rich’s research team has been examining the role of provincial policy related to sport in Ontario since 2021. Their work culminated with a series of discussions about policy development and implementation in the province. The recently published report summarizes insights from these discussions into four key findings and outlines three main recommendations with detailed actions for both the provincial government and provincial sport organizations.

Recommendations include creating a provincial amateur sport plan or framework; building a collective voice for amateur sport; and leveraging provincial sport expertise, resources and capacity.

The publication of the report comes at an especially critical time, says Rich, as the Government of Ontario just established the Ministry of Sport, dedicated specifically to building a strong sport system in Ontario, this past June.

“There is an urgent need for sport policy reform in the province, and we now have the mechanisms and processes in place to enhance sport policy and development in Ontario,” he says. “If we want community sports groups to operate as professional organizations, and to implement important policies around things like safe sport and equity in sport as well as continuing to be the development system for elite athletes, then we need to support them in making these changes.”