Developing proactive support of athlete mental health: Starting with cricket
Dr George Ely
Pathway: Sport and Exercise Science
Department: Institute for the Psychology of Elite Performance (IPEP)
University: Bangor University
Mentors: Professor Ross Roberts and Professor Lynne Evans (Cardiff Metropolitan University)
Project Summary
During the fellowship I will continue collaborating with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA) on the translation of my PhD research into resources that will directly impact cricketer mental health. Additionally, I will spend time analysing data that we hope will be used to further develop an existing ECB mental health support tool, whilst also providing evidence for how we can proactively support the mental health of athletes across all of professional sport. Aside from discretely research related activities, I also will also engage in activities such as teaching, presenting at conferences, learning new analytical techniques, submit grant applications, and developing relationships with stakeholders. In totality, it is the hope that the project will provide a stepping stone between finishing a PhD and finding a permanent role in research and/or education that will enable me to continue my work for years to come.
Goals for the Fellowship
- Enhance my academic CV via a publication in a flagship journal and through presentations at national and international conferences.
- Further researcher skills. Specifically, the use of Machine Learning will be necessary to most aptly address our research questions related to proactive support of athlete mental health given the data we have.
- Develop existing professional network within cricket and forge new relationships with prospective organisations outside of cricket (and potentially outside of sport).
- Gain teaching experience.
More broadly, by the end of the fellowship, it will be important for me to have found the next step in my career and the hope is that through achieving the goal above I will be successful in this goal.
Advice for future applicants
I would recommend reaching out to someone who has previously been successful in applying for this fellowship, or at least an academic who is experienced in grant applications, to get advice on where to get started. It’s a pretty large and daunting task with lots of different pieces that all have strict word/page limits and that all need to join up. Getting their advice on what needs to go where will help the task feel a lot more manageable. Additionally, I found just reading successful applications to be helpful as I learnt there are subtle differences in the way one writes an application for academic funding as opposed to how we typically write as academics.
Publications
Peer reviewed publications
Ely, G., Roberts, R., Woodman, T., Jones, E., Evans, L., Cropper, M., & Peirce, N. (2025). Exploring professional cricketers’ well-being: Insights and influences. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 1–21.
Ely, G., & Ronkainen, N. J. (2019). “It’s not just about football all the time either”: Transnational athletes’ stories about the choice to migrate. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 1–14.
Ely, G., Woodman, T., Roberts, R., Jones, E., Wedatilake, T., Sanders, P., & Peirce, N. (2023). The impact of living in a bio-secure bubble on mental health: An examination in elite cricket. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 68, 102447.
Ely, G., Woodman, T., Roberts, R., Jones, E., Williams, L., & Peirce, N. (2025). A Three‐Year Longitudinal Study of Athlete Mental Health: A Cricket Case Study. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 35(9), e70125.
Williams, C., Wooden, J., Ely, G. & MacDonald, J. (2025). Babi Actif: Helping parents to actively enjoy the outdoors with their baby. International Journal of Birth and Parent Education.
Twitter: @GElySportPsych
LinkedIn: George Ely
Email: George.Ely@Bangor.ac.uk