University project will help Portsmouth get active this Spring

There’s an exciting few months ahead for students and the wider community, as the University of Portsmouth springs into bloom. Here, Dan Lodge and Becky Miles from the University give us the highlights in their monthly Business Talks column.

Spring has arrived on campus, and we’ll be supporting the Portsmouth community in getting out there and enjoying the warmer weather through a new group coordinated by Active Partnership Energise Me!

The group has been formed to collaboratively tackle inequalities and improve health outcomes for residents in Landport and Buckland by helping them to move more.

Inactivity data for Portsmouth indicates over 14,000 children and young people are not reaching the recommended activity levels for good health. Over 52,000 adults in Portsmouth are not meeting the guideline.

Landport and Buckland were highlighted by Sport England as places for investment using inactivity insight and other social need indicators, to target funding in areas it could have the biggest impact.

Last year, Portsmouth was chosen as the city to be home to the UK’s first PLAYCE, a multi-movement activity space built using a pioneering scientific model for movement called the Athletic Skills Model (ASM). It was constructed in Lords Court, Landport, after the council approved the use of the site.

The project was a collaboration between the University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth City Council (PCC), and the Athletic Skills Model (ASM) Company.

Dr Martina Navarro, who co-led the PLAYCE project said: “This collaboration is about breaking down barriers to physical activity and creating sustainable, community-led solutions. By working closely with local organisations and residents, we can make movement more accessible, enjoyable, and impactful for health and well-being in Landport and Buckland.”

From black holes to boardrooms

Our events are your chance to hear first-hand how research changes the world – and why people do it.

On 12 March we present two fascinating Inaugural Lectures in one evening.

In Surfing the Cosmos with Gravitational Waves, Professor of Cosmology Tessa Baker introduces us to a new field of astronomy research that could upend our understanding of the Universe.

In Multi-Objective Optimisation for Better Decisions, Professor of Operational Research Banu Lokman explores how organisations in sectors as diverse as healthcare, energy and logistics use cutting-edge techniques to solve their most complex problems.

Professor Lokman says: ‘In today’s business landscape, organisations are faced with complex optimisation problems that involve multiple, often conflicting objectives such as maximising profit, minimising risk, and enhancing sustainability.

‘In many cases, no single solution satisfies all objectives simultaneously, making it necessary to identify nondominated solutions, where improving one objective involves trade-offs with others. The number of such solutions can grow so large that decision-making becomes more difficult to manage.

‘This lecture explores multi-objective optimisation techniques and methods, which are proven to work well in producing a set of efficient decisions with nondominated outcomes.

‘To illustrate the impact of these techniques, I’ll showcase how they’ve been applied to optimise prostate biopsy sampling plans.’

For our complete list of events visit go.port.ac.uk/events