Research into the performance and safety of sport surfaces and related areas has seen rapid growth in the last 10+ years. This increase is perhaps linked to the rising popularity of artificial turf surfaces across Europe for high participation sports such as soccer, rugby union and rugby league; as well as the introduction of these surfaces into the laws of the game globally.
Existing research into sport surfaces can broadly be divided into three (overlapping) categories: pitch infrastructure, user safety and play performance. Coalescing the existing research activity as well as the gaps in knowledge into a communicable framework remains a challenging problem.
The SSRG proposes such a framework (see above). Please follow the links above to find out more about the key themes, particularly with respect to ongoing research at Loughborough University (LU).