Professor Hanton, Sheldon University of Wales Institute (Cardiff School of Sport), Cardiff, United Kingdom  Sheldon Hanton is a Professor of Sport Psychology in the Cardiff School of Sport at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. He received his PhD in 1996 from Loughborough University and is currently the Research Excellence Framework Director for his institution. Sheldon is the Professional Practice Editor of The Sport Psychologist, on the Advisory Board for the Journal of Sports Sciences, the Editorial Board for the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, the Journal of Imagery Research in Sport and Physical Activity and Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise. He is also a member of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Peer Review College. Professor Hanton lists his interests as stress and anxiety, organizational psychology, sports injury, reflective practice, and the subject matter of his keynote lecture: Mental Toughness. Sheldon has published over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles, edited texts, book chapters and refereed conference papers. He has advised on 12 PhD completions, examined internationally and is currently supervising 9 Doctoral candidates. Sheldon is an Accredited Psychologist with the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences, a Registered Olympic Psychologist, and a Certified Consultant and Fellow with the Association for Applied Sport Psychology. He is also a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society and Registered with the United States Olympic Committee. Sheldon regularly works with elite populations on psychological preparation and supervises trainee sport psychologists to attain professional status. As a former National High Performance Centre Psychologist he advised the England Swim Team and consulted at international training camps and competitions. Keynote abstract Another decade of research and still the question remains: What is this thing called Mental Toughness? During the past decade, mental toughness has become one of the most popular areas of inquiry within the field of sport psychology. Researchers have devoted most of their efforts to attempting to define what mental toughness is, identifying its underpinning attributes, and examining issues relating to its measurement and development. Qualitative approaches in the form of individual and group interviews initially dominated the peer-reviewed literature although the emphasis has shifted recently to quantitative examinations using mental toughness inventories. Notwithstanding the advancement of knowledge in all of these areas, differences of opinion still exist, particularly regarding conceptual and rhetorical issues and inevitably the consequential measurement complications. Following a brief historical overview of the literature, this lecture discusses the important areas of debate together with the main practical implications relating to the identified qualities of success, particularly within elite sporting populations. Adopting an introspective stance, Professor Hanton reflects on the lessons he has learnt from conducting research in mental toughness and the implications for generating quality research in the field of sport psychology. The lecture draws to close by returning to the fundamental question – what is this thing called mental toughness?– and offers suggestions for the direction of the next decade’s research in this area.
Professor Matos, Margarida Technical University of Lisbon - Faculty of Human Kinetics and the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (CMDT-LA), Lisbon, Portugal Degree in Clinical Psychology Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada Post Graduation in Human Biology (AEU - Attestation d’Etudes Universitaires) Universidade Claude Bernard - LYON - FRANCE Psychology of Education- ISPA / Universidade de Bristol (“Master of Education”). PhD  Human Kinetics – Special needs and rehabilitation- Social Behaviou Faculdade de Motricidade Humana Post doctoral training: S. Diego  University  ( grant from JNICT). Leidsehogeschool / Leiden  School of Public Health. Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Schoolof  Public Health (Brisbane). Full Professorship exam – International Health - School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine - Lisbon. Now : Full Professor at School of Human Kinetics/ Technical University  of Lisbon.  Coordinator of the Research and Teaching Group : Health Education & Promotion Senior Principal Researcher  at  Center for Malaria and Tropical Diseases-  Coordinates the Research Group - Health & Education / School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine/ New University of Lisbon. She coordinates several national and european level research projects and she is the portuguese representative at several european level research networks. Extensive experience teaching, researching, team coordination, publishing , as well as collaborating with African, Latin Americam and Asian countries, regarding  health related research, or training projects. Keynote abstract Health Assets for the promotion of personal and social health and wellbeing in children and adolescents One of the great challenges of this century, has been made clear by the ‘Millennium Goals (MDG)’ - that is to ensure access to health and education "for all", and to achieve the eradication of poverty and inequities. Commitment to achieve these goals, at a European level at least, is currently high. The last 2 EU Presidencies’ in Finland and Spain focused on ‘Health in all policies’ and ‘Health and equity in all policies’ respectively. High level policy commitment is the first step in moving towards our ambitious goals but not in themselves enough to make the vision a reality. Despite these commitments, ways of achieving them are still heavily dominated by deficit approaches to health majoring on the need to reduce disease and mortality rather than an emphasis on the here and now, by focusing on happiness and wellbeing. An additional challenge therefore is how we can shift the balance so our plans for health take a more constructive and proactive ‘assets’ based approach to fulfil the aims of the MDG. The starting point for such a shift is to ask different questions to help us create an evidence base on how to create health. Asset based questions include: what makes us better able to deal with day to day challenges?; how can we be open to positive experiences?; what can organisations and institutions do to  help us grow as individuals and as societies?. In addition we need to ask the following questions to assess how we take action most effectively: how do we identify and build upon the strengths of each person, group or community?; how can we think globally and act locally to understand the  specific needs of individuals, groups and cultures?; how do we  create synergies and eliminate "waste" creating wealth in times of "crisis"?;  how can we involve those who we are trying to help ( children, adolescents, vulnerable adults, elderly) appropriately and well?; How to remain attentive to the “new vulnerable groups”?; What are the barriers to developing asset based policy in education, health and social welfare?.  This paper uses these questions to build a case study on how best to create the conditions for the personal and social wellbeing of Portuguese children and adolescents. It focuses on 3 potential assets the promotion of skills, self-regulation and social capital, as they are associated with ‘sedentary behaviour or active behaviour’, ‘nutrition, body appearance and BMI’ & ‘personal and social well being’. In doing so it will highlight how asset based approaches can contribute to the broader goals of National and International policies for health and development.
Professor Pensgaard, Anne Marte Norwegian School of Sport Sciences (Department Coaching and Psychology), Olso and the Norwegian Olympic Traning Centre, Oslo, Norway Professor Pensgaard has a joint position at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences and as head of the Sport Psychology department at the Norwegian Olympic Training Center. She has published extensively within the field of elite sport, motivation and coping with stress and also written several books and produced DVD’s and CD’s on mental training. She has been accredited sport psychologist at five Olympic Games and has worked with several World Champions and Olympic Gold Medalists in soccer, handball, orienteering  and skiing. Currently, she is involved with preparing athletes for the Olympic Games in London 2012 and in Sochi 2014 . She is also engaged by the University of Tromsø to contribute to build a center for excellence in sport where mindfulness is one major philosophy. In Spring 2011 she launched a CD on mental training and awareness together with world know jazz pianist Bugge Wesseltoft. In her leisure time Professor Pensgaard enjoys extreme outdoor life and has crossed Greenland in 1990 as part of the first all-female expedition, and in 2000 she and Marit Holm used one month to ski Svalbard from north to south, again, as the first all-female expedition. Keynote abstract Applied Sport Psychology Excellent performances at the elite level are a delicate composition of physical strength and endurance, tactical cleverness, technical distinction, strong determination and mental flexibility. It takes thousands of hours to develop these skills to a level which makes an athlete become the best in the world in his or her sport. Knowledge of how these skills are developed and trained has evolved over the last three to four decades and now, in 2011, mental training seems to have reached a new level. While it traditionally used to mainly consist of Psychological Skills Training, there now seems to be a consensus that psychological training at the Elite level also include more basic issues like self esteem and self worth, awareness, general coping abilities, optimism and motivation. Perspectives like mindfulness training and integrated mental training into the physical training have become more common and examples will be presented of how this has been conducted leading up the 2010 Olympic Winter games. Although it is a challenge to conduct traditional strong scientific research designs in order to test the effect of these new (and old!) approaches, there is emerging evidence that mental training has become an important part of today’s elite sport persons and that also elite coaches benefits from the same type of practice. Current status and future trends will be discussed.
Professor Rosnet, Elisabeth Université de Reims Champagne Ardenne (Laboratoire de Psychologie Appliquée), Reims and the Institut National du Sport, de l'Expertise et de la Performance (INSEP), Paris, France  Elisabeth Rosnet is currently head of the Research Department in the French National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance in Paris after being head of the Laboratory of Applied Psychology in the University of Reims, France. Her research main topic is psychological adaptation of “normal” people to unusual and stressful situations, like polar wintering, space flight and top-performance sport. She’s conducted many research protocols in these domains, including direct data collections that leaded her 6 times in Antarctica to debrief winterers and investigations during long term flight simulations. She’s also since 20 years the psychologist of the French Fencing Federation, giving her the opportunity to work with top-performance fencers. Keynote abstract Sport, Exercise, Polar and Space Psychology: links and challenges Living in polar and space environments is considered as stressful and challenging for people who are confronted to. Several aspects of high sport performance allow to envisage some common theoretical and methodological backgrounds and skates with these extreme situations. Winterers, astronauts, and athletes are more often basically non pathological persons who faced highly stressful situations. This can induce unusual behaviors that would have few probability to appear if people did not decide deliberately to cope with these specific conditions. These behaviors can induce poor performance in a context of required excellence. The keynote will provide a broad scope of knowledge and tools that can be brought from polar and space to sport and exercise psychology and from sport and exercise to polar and space psychology. Different topics will be discussed, like coping strategies or group behavior and applications will be structured according to detection (or selection), training and support phases.
Professor Sparkes, Andrew Andrew C. Sparkes PhD is Professor of Sport & Body Pedagogy  in the Faculty of Education, Community & Leisure at Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, L17 6BD, England. His research interests revolve around the ways that people experience different forms of embodiment over time in a variety of contexts. Recent work has focused on performing bodies and identity formation; catastrophic spinal cord injury in sport and the narrative reconstruction of self; ageing bodies; and the lives and careers of marginalized individuals and groups. These interests are framed by a desire to develop interpretative forms of understanding via the use of life history, ethnography, and narrative approaches. His work is nomadic in nature, operating across disciplinary boundaries and flourishing in the fertile spaces between them. Whilst respecting traditions he seeks to trouble standard notions of method and aspires to represent lived experience using a variety of genres. Andrew has published extensively on  his research interests as well as on methodological issues in leading texts and journals across a range of disciplines. Keynote abstract Qualitative research in sport and exercise psychology: Future challenges and points of contestation In recent years various forms of qualitative research have become increasingly popular within sport and exercise psychology and are now being used to investigate a range of phenomena. While this rise in popularity is to be welcomed it also needs to be problematized and challenged if qualitative research is to develop greater levels of sophistication and achieve its full potential within the discipline. Accordingly, in this presentation I offer some personal reflections on the challenges that qualitative researchers in sport and exercise psychology might wish to address in the future. Topics touched upon, some lightly and some heavily, include the following:  Examining the nature of trust and rapport within interview and field settings; Balancing concerns with the ‘what’s and ‘hows’ of story-telling alongside a recognition of the performative dynamics of this process; Acknowledging ethnographers as an endangered species in need of saving; Bringing the body back in to the  analytical process in a reflexive manner; Destabilizing  the  emergence of mixed-methods research and exploring tensions between the purists and the pragmatists;  Scrutinizing vested interests and the use/abuse of using inappropriate criteria to judge different forms of research. Throughout the presentation points of contestation will be identified and celebrated as opportunities for critical and respectful dialogue within sport and exercise psychology that can enhance the discipline in multiple ways.