Australian Sports Tech Analytics & AI Research (AusiSTAR) Hub

  • Australian Sports Tech Analytics & AI Research (AusiSTAR) Hub

AusiSTAR aims to be a National and Global Leader in Sports, eSports, Sport Tech Analytics, and AI Research and Translation

AusiSTAR is a consortium of universities, sports associations, government agencies and corporate entities which collectively create a critical mass of cross-disciplinary research expertise. Their goal is to leverage sports technologies, artificial intelligence, and data analytics to enhance various aspects of sports, including performance, participation, productivity, innovation, and education.

Headquartered at QUT in Brisbane (host city for 2032 games), AusiSTAR aims to support the needs of Australia’s sport ecosystem through collaborative, industry-led research and R&D, education and training, innovation, and talent and business attraction. The hub also seeks to address multiple government and national strategies in areas such as sports, the 2032 legacy, health, digital innovation, trade and investment, diplomacy, science, and research. This comprehensive approach is designed to create a meaningful impact and deliver significant benefits.

AusiSTAR Hub members include high-level representatives from performance sports, professional sports, disability, community, and university sports, aiming to serve all levels, codes, and abilities. Additionally, the hub supports Australia’s $4.5 billion per year sportstech industry, ranging from startups to the Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN), and also collaborates with big tech firms and organizations in adjacent industries of economic importance, such as fitness, wellness, health, occupational health and safety, medtech, biotech, and defence.

What will AusiSTAR deliver?

  • Job Creation and Economic Growth: The project aims to create over 200 new jobs by 2028, contributing to Australia’s employment growth. Additionally, it drives economic development by fostering innovation in sports technology and related industries. Through partnerships and collaborations, the project accelerates business growth and productivity, leading to broader economic impact.
  • Improved Sports and Athletic Performance: This initiative supports athletic sports by enhancing performance through better talent identification, injury management, predictive analytics, and strategic planning. It also promotes sports integrity and advances the overall quality of athletic competitions. These efforts aim to keep athletes performing at their best while ensuring a fair and safe competitive environment.
  • Support for Community Sports: The project is committed to supporting community sports by encouraging broader participation, inclusivity, and fan and volunteer engagement. It promotes the health and wellbeing benefits of sports and provides resources to make community sports more accessible. By focusing on inclusion and a wider reach, the project seeks to build stronger connections within local sports communities.
  • Health and Wellbeing Outcomes: A core objective is to leverage sports to improve health and wellbeing. The project uses a holistic approach to promote preventative health through sports activities, addressing life-stage needs and supporting hormonal balance. It engages with remote and Indigenous communities to ensure everyone benefits from these initiatives, and offers personalised digital tools to enhance health, sports, and STEM literacy.
  • Overall Holistic Impact: Beyond sports and economics, this project aims to create a broader holistic impact. It supports sports diplomacy and national security by encouraging collaboration, human performance improvement, and resilience in the face of environmental changes. The project aims to influence multiple sectors positively, contributing to a stronger, more connected society.

VIDEOS:  What is AusiSTAR? (left) and AusiSTAR Launch Event (right)

   

Exemplar Activities in AusiSTAR

AusiSTAR aims to act as an umbrella for a range of activities undertaken collectively and individually by Hub members, to coalesce expertise, grow and amplify research/R&D and training, and raise Australia’s global profile in the key fields of sports science and data science.

Exemplar activities in research, training, engagement and investment:

The Queensland Academy of Sport (QAS), Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and QUT Centre for Data Science are strategic partners in a world leading program of research in data science in sports. The mission is to tackle key challenges and support day-to-day decisions in sports and athletic training through innovations at the intersection of data science and the sports, and sports science and sports medicine.  At present, the collaboration features a 0.5FTE industry research fellow (A/Prof Paul Wu), two PhD students and a Masters student, and a network of collaborators across academia and sports organisations, the research activities include:

  • Winning and establishing two Next Generation Graduates Program (NGGP) grants in sports data science and AI worth $3,574,989 to fund 25 higher degree research students collaborating with 20 industry partners across 4 universities.
  • Student projects collaborating with AIS, QAS, Swimming Australia and Paddle Australia including:
    • Bayesian modelling of cohort time series data – an analysis of training and racing in sprint kayak
    • Extending Bayesian decision trees to incorporate external information
    • Data informed talent identification in swimming
  • Methodological innovations and invited talks such as to the International Association of Statistical Computing SCRI workshop in Taiwan (2023) to present a novel algorithm for mapping dependent clusters in networks
  • “Paul (Wu) and his team have provided a level of data analytics expertise that has changed our interpretation of subsequent injuries in elite Australian football. His work on Bayesian survival modelling has become instrumental in the club’s internal decision-making processes about returning injured players to the competitive arena and provides a great example of how this field can be utilised in elite sport”. (Jordan Stares, S&C Coach, West Coast Eagles, 2022).

Brisbane Times News Story that features the work of A/Prof Paul Wu:  The science behind Aussie swimmers’ quest for Paris gold

 

Next Generation Graduates Program (NGGP)

The NGGP grants are aimed at building a competitive and capable workforce that will drive the growth of the Australian tech sector. With our program, the NGGP grants will fund a first cohort of 25 higher degree research (HDR) student placements (Honours, Masters, PhDs) and create a community of students who will learn together as they tackle these research challenges.

COMING SOON: Data Science Kiosk for Sports

Funded by the Australian Institute of Sport, the Sports Data Science Kiosk will use guided questions, mind maps and wiki articles to help users find resources to do sports analytics. These include tutorials and guidelines, software, training, publicly available datasets and relevant data science experts. This kiosk is being developed and curated with experts in sports data science across universities and the National Institutes Network (NIN), informed by the latest research and materials in an ever-evolving field.

 

The Australian sports technology ("sportstech") sector is undergoing unprecedented growth, with over 750 companies and over $4 billion in annual revenue (comparable to the fintech industry). The sports analytics segment underpins many of the advances in sportstech and is projected to grow from $2.58B to $16.5B by 2030.

An ongoing challenge to this growth is the increasingly diverse range of problems that sportstech aims to address across the domains of sports performance, participation and promotion. These problems intersect with concomitant research challenges in sports analytics including big data, complex systems, privacy, governance and sports integrity. Solutions to these challenges requires multidisciplinary research teams across data science, health and sports science, and business and law, in concert with engineering, justice and social science, and in close collaboration with government and industry partners.

To meet these challenges, QUT has committed $4.75M over 5 years as co-funding for three Professorial Chairs, as well as postdocs and PhD scholarships. The senior roles will combine expertise in sports science, data science, and business and law, and will contribute to the leadership of the AusiSTAR Hub.

Partner Organisations