The 8th EHF Scientific Conference: “New bridges between science and practice”

“This is a very nice conference that brings new bridges among scientists and coaches. It's not just bringing new bridges between science and practice — it's networking. This is the rare opportunity where cooperation and confrontation meet,” said Igor Gruic, associate professor at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Kinesiology, on what drew him to the conference. Gruic presented on “The Relationship Between Maximum Ball Exit Speed and Shooting Accuracy and Expert Assessment of Basic Shot Technique in Handball.” 

The conference began with the keynote presentations, the five of which were made on the first afternoon, after EHF Secretary General Martin Hausleitner and EHF Methods Commission Chairman Pedro Sequeira opened proceedings.

First up on the programme was Dr Jesper Bencke, head of the Human Movement Analysis Laboratory at Copenhagen University Hospital, who presented the newly published “EHF Injury Prevention Manual: From science to practice in handball.” Bencke will also be part of the programme at the upcoming EHF Grassroots Convention 2026, which will take place in conjunction with the Men’s EHF EURO 2026, specifically on 22 and 23 January in Malmö, Sweden. 

“There are many benefits, I think,” said Bencke of the value of the Scientific Conference. “First of all, a lot of people gain new knowledge about different aspects of handball, and I think particularly, in this conference, it's very diverse — it's mental issues, it’s league handball, it’s children's handball and its physiology for performance for injury prevention, and so on.

“Handball, compared to football, it’s a smaller sport, so gathering here is most of the researchers doing research in handball and I think it's very, very good.

“When we meet here, it's also great for networking — that you have a possibility to know what people are doing around the world and also to talk and discuss and get inspired for new projects.”

The remaining keynote presentations were:

• “Mental health matters: The foundation of effective coaching in sport” — Dr Renata Baric
• “Rethinking excellence in sport through the lens of safeguarding” — Dr Zrinka Greblo-Jurakic
• “Position-aware player evaluation in handball: a bio-inspired and explainable AI approach” — Dr Julio Alberto López Gómez
• “Reimagining coach education and development: Case studies from across the world” — Dr Liam McCarthy

Following the opening presentations, the breakout sessions began, with participants having the choice between two different lectures at any given time. Topics covered included:

• physical elements of handball, such as aerobic capacity and acute biochemical responses to competitive tournament load;
• game-specific examinations, for example, temporal and situational analysis of seven-metre shots in elite handball and efficiency of women’s handball teams in positional offence and counter-attacks;
• strength and training elements, like the relationship between the physiological integrity profile and muscular strength in youth players and biomarkers of overtraining; and
• other areas, such as the future of beach handball, whether referee nationality impacts dynamics of video replay and the efficiency of talent development systems.

“A good option to make the handball community aware about this research”

Among the first of the breakout sessions was Benedetta Coco’s presentation, “Handball Injury and Illness Surveillance (IIS): A Step Towards an International Consensus.” Coco advocates for a consensus statement in handball in order to not only standardise reporting but provide useful data towards the future management of areas such as injury prevention.

“If we don't have consistent and comparable data, we don't really know what are the injury trends,” said Coco. Such data is “basically the first main step to build strong prevention strategies or to build strong exercise prevention programmes. So, from my perspective as a physio, but from a coach perspective or athlete perspective, it’s a very important topic.”

Coco applied to be part of the conference with the hope of raising awareness in the handball community. Participants not only speak at the conference, but also have the chance to have their work published in a special issue of peer-reviewed scientific journal Frontiers.

“That was a good option to make the handball community aware about this research lack. Obviously, I know that is a challenge and especially because stakeholders are not that engaged — it's quite boring, it's quite tricky to gather this data. But I think that if someone builds a strong and consistent, reliable system and we start to guide stakeholders and coaches on that, giving them basically the chance to make the process easier depending on their resources obviously, we could gather more data, we could gather more information and more material for research.

“Hopefully it would be an international consensus statement that, actually, research needs. We have hockey, soccer, rugby, even horse racing consensus statements on methods for recording injury and illnesses, but not in handball, so we need a good one for handball as well.” 

Providing tools applicable across countries and clubs

Niels Rossing, associate professor at Aalborg University, presented his lecture on a mental health programme for under-13 handball players on day two of the conference.

“I hope that my study will be an inspiration to federations or clubs or even just coaches that may use our programme or parts of the programme to develop some tools that they can use together with the players and thereby hopefully enhancing participation but also their motivation,” said Rossing.

“I think there's room for improvement in the sports psychology within the handball community, so that's also motivation for me to try to provide some tools that may be applicable across countries and clubs. At least, that's our hope and our aim.”

As highlighted by the researchers, the Scientific Conference provides benefits on all sides — offering those working with teams and players the chance to improve their knowledge and learn the latest developments around the game while the researchers have the chance to share their work with those interested through both in-person lectures and publication.

“I really like the idea that you have a sport-specific conference like this EHF Scientific Conference but also have a special issue (of Frontiers) connected to it, because then you can really target your research to both the conference but also the scientific journal,” said Rossing. 

“I’ve known from the previous(conference) in Porto that this event is very inspiring. It has a lot of different topics in handball and a lot of great colleagues also I’ll be introduced to through the conference. And it’s just a nice atmosphere as well.”

Photos © Tim Passgang