About Jeroen Scheerder
KU Leuven, Belgium
Jeroen Scheerder is a professor of sports politics and sports sociology at the Department of Movement Sciences at KU Leuven, Belgium. He has a scientific and educational background in the sociology of sports and physical activity (PhD), in movement and sports sciences (MSc), and in social and cultural anthropology (MA). He is the academic coordinator of the KU Leuven Sports Policy & Sports Management Master Programme and the associate director of the KU Leuven Urban Studies Institute (LUSI). Formerly, he was promotor-coordinator of the Interuniversity Policy Research Centre on Sports on behalf of the Flemish Government (2017-2023), (vice-)president of the European Association for Sociology of Sport (EASS, 2012-2018), and head of the KU Leuven Policy in Sports & Physical Activity Research Group (2012-2023). Also, he held a visiting professorship in sports sociology at Ghent University (2005-2007). Professor Scheerder has gained significant expertise in sociological, governance-related and political aspects of sports and leisure-time physical activity, focusing on topics such as (in)equality, diversity and sustainability. Together with colleagues from the Dutch Mulier Institute in Utrecht, the German Sport University in Cologne and the University of London, he co-founded and co-coordinates three international scientific networks, namely GLOBES, MEASURE and POLIS, which focus on Global North and Global South sports research, sports culture and sports participation, and sports policy and sports politics, respectively. These networks encompass over 75 researchers from different countries and continents, enabling cross-national collaboration in the fields of sports governance, sports management, sports policy and sports sociology. Professor Scheerder has contributed extensively to the academic literature, (co-)authoring +210 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and (co-)edited eight international volumes on sports, culture and politics from a cross-national and comparative perspective, published by Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge and Springer. So far, he was co-editor of three special issues, and is/was (co-)supervisor of 22 doctoral theses in the fields of sports anthropology, sports governance, sports politics and sports sociology. Professor Scheerder has delivered keynote addresses at international conferences and acted as a guest professor at universities and university colleges in Africa, Asia and Europe, cementing his role as an authority on policy, governance and sociology of sports. Since 2009 he has been supervising large-scale research projects (both qualitative and quantitative) on social, cultural and political aspects of participatory as well as spectator sports, including studies that focus on discrimination and racism in sports. In his research he developed interdisciplinary partnerships with both social and biomedical scientists, among which anthropologists, communication scientists, epidemiologists, political scientists, social psychologists and sociologists. He teaches classes to both bachelor and master students in the fields of anthropology and sociology of sports and leisure, sports governance, and sports politics. Since 2009 he is the lead editor of the KU Leuven Sport, Policy & Management Studies.