Elite Sports Team Challenge

By gathering a high quality team of students from across the University they will meet a selected sports team.  Supported by the University’s Wellbeing and Sports Officer, Emerge will facilitate focus groups with the chosen sports team to help them achieve greater success.  

Can you develop a conceptual design that could foster stronger team spirit?  

Maybe a product that improves performance or increases safety for participants?  

Perhaps it’s better equipment tailored towards training over competition or vice versa? 

Can it help the team move faster, throw further, last longer and ultimately succeed more?  
 

Together, we will raise the bar  

For inspiration consider this new smart mouthguard for rugby players, or a new way to train at the gym.  The ball is in your court.  How will you react?
 

By bringing together students with skills and experience from across all faculties, this is an experiment to see whether we have what it takes to accelerate sport here at the University.  This is an opportunity to hone your entrepreneurial talent, to unlock potential and to make your mark.

How is this going to work?

We are calling students to express interest in taking part.  We want the best from each faculty, those who are passionate about making a difference in sport, those who believe they have what it takes to explore challenges, develop strong solutions and pitch their ideas to others.
 

Expressions of Interest close: Wednesday 11th February 2026

Week 1:  Team members are selected, introduced to each other and to the selected University sports team

Week 2:  Focus group(s) discussion with the University sports team to gather insights & brainstorm ideas

Week 3:  Select and develop chosen idea

Week 4: Pitch chosen idea to the University sports team

Week 5:  Consider submitting application to the Emerge Awards Showcase by 23rd March 2026
 

Following selection, you can expect:

• STEP 1: Initial focus group with the sports team. 

This will be to draw out the challenges they currently face, the barriers to progress, the pain-points they frequently face.  To do this, you will explore how they train, how they select their team, how to prepare for competition and how they perform.  This step is entirely about what they do now and have done, not what they might do in the future.

• STEP 2: Prioritise and brainstorm

You, our student experts, will discuss what you’ve heard, prioritise a key focus area, then brainstorm solutions.  This could identify gadgets, products, services, frameworks, processes, equipment, training, partnerships, or whatever that is required to solve the problem, that pain-point, that hurdle faced by the sports team.

• STEP 3: Develop and present

Now is the time to expand on your chosen solution, it is the time to sketch out, to model, to highlight the 1 or 2 essential features needed to meet the need of the sport team.  The real test will be when you present back to the same sport team members.  Will they agree with you?  Will they like what you have done?  Would they back you to take this solution further?

As they say, you have to be in it, to win it.
 

Why do we want you?

Is this a crazy idea or a powerful plan for success? 
 

When people build together, the ideas get bigger, the fear gets smaller, and the room starts buzzing.

Emerge is scouting out those with an appetite to excel, those with enterprising minds and the skills to make stuff happen.  We need energetic individuals who can work together.  This will be fast paced to match the intensity of the sports team.  

Now is not the time to take a breather.

We are seeking 1 student from each faculty to join us.  We need an engineering mind to solve problems, a social scientist to unpick the real behaviours and traits requiring change, somebody from arts & humanities who can balance arguments and bring concepts to life, a scientist with ability to connect the dots and ask deep clarifying questions, a student with medical knowledge and patient care to ensure it is the people that benefit and succeed.

Everyone has a part to play.  Together you will form the extraordinaries, a crack team with the talent to unlock potential.
 

Who we want:

• Tenacious individuals who get things done

• Curious minds who explore deeper

• 1 person from each faculty (open to students only)
   

We can tell you already that you are not the one if:

• You have very little time to prioritise in-person meet ups

• You’re not interested in listening to others or what they have to say

• You just want to dabble in something new 

• You don’t see things through

So tell us why you are the one.  
 

It’s simple.  It’s fast.

Complete this form, hit submit.  

This is about knowing what it feels like to start something that might not work - and doing it anyway.

We are waiting.  Are you in?