Centre for Health and Applied Sport and Exercise Research (CHASER)

Our research to develop Physical Employment Standards (PES) provides organisations with a framework of physical tests or assessments, which are based on the demands of their job role(s).

The process for developing PES typically involves four phases of research: (1) Identifying the most critical physically demanding tasks performed in a job role; (2) quantifying the physical demands of these tasks; (3) developing physical tests based on the demands of the job which can be used in-service to assess serving personnel on a regular basis; and (4) developing pre-employment tests to select potential applicants which are empirically linked to the in-service tests and standards.

See CHASER’s Occupational Performance Research Group to find out more.

The Clem Burke Drumming Project was founded in 2008 by the Blondie drummer Dr Clem Burke, Professor Steve Draper (Hartpury University) and Professor Marcus Smith (University of Chichester).

What initially set out to examine the physiological demands of playing ‘live’ during one-off and multiple gigs has grown into a long-term project exploring the physical, mental and health benefits of drumming.

The findings from our pioneering work, using the latest magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology, are showing the transformative potential of drumming.

You can find out more about the Clem Burke Drumming Project on their website.

Building on prior research in epidemiology, which evidenced various health benefits of anthocyanin-rich foods, CHASER researchers have provided novel and robust evidence for the benefits of anthocyanin-rich blackcurrant (and blackcurrant supplementation) in athletic and non-athletic populations.

The first study in this programme of research examined whether blackcurrant affected common exercise physiology parameters. It provided an essential observation: taking anthocyanin-rich blackcurrant powder for seven days can lower exercise intensity-related blood lactate during intermittent incremental exercise.

This effect on substrate metabolism is known to occur by biological adaptations after long-term endurance exercise training, so our research indicates the incredible potential for anthocyanin-rich supplementation to affect human physiology.

Another industry-funded study demonstrated that taking anthocyanin-rich blackcurrant extract had a meaningful endurance-enhancing effect on a cycling time trial, and further exercise performance studies have shown an enhancing effect for a variety of exercise modalities (intermittent high-intensity running, sprint running, and sports climbing), indicating the broad application of anthocyanin-rich supplementation in sports.

See CHASER’s Nutritional Supplementation Research Group to find out more.

Sexual Health In the over ForTy-fives (SHIFT) was part of the Interreg VA 2Seas programme, running from March 2019 to September 2022.

The University was awarded funding for the project from the European Regional Development Fund of over €4m. SHIFT was a cross-disciplinary project, involving Chichester researchers from the CHASER centre, as well as colleagues with expertise in psychology in the University’s POWER Centre. It also involved partners from the UK, the Netherlands, France and Belgium.

See our SHIFT page to learn more about this project.