Dr Derwin KC Chan, Assistant Professor of the Division of Behavioural Sciences of our School, has been awarded a prestigious research award of US$66,000 from the Target Social Science Research Grant Program of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to conduct an academic research project on anti-doping.

WADA’s Social Science Research Grant Program is set up to encourage and support social science research relating toevidence-based doping prevention strategies. Dr Chan will work with a team of researchers on a study entitled “Developing an Evidence-Based Smartphone Application for Monitoring and Promoting Athletes’ Awareness to Unintentional Doping”.

The study will last for 3 years and its research findings will have notable theoretical and practical implications for anti-doping education.Theoretically, the project will clarify which of the psychological factors are most salient for the behavioural adherence and awareness to the avoidance of unintentional doping. Practically, the project will develop a smartphone application that provides a cost-effective medium for the promotion and surveillance of unintentional doping awareness, and most importantly, have potential for future application in multiple countries for the global anti-doping mission of WADA.

The School congratulates Dr Chan on receiving this highly competitive international award.