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It was during Hanya Pielichaty's 20 years as an elite footballer that the seeds of her pedagogical interest in gender inclusivity in sport were sown – a period when women and football were often viewed as an unusual pairing.
Hanya is now a National Teaching Fellow and Professor of Sport, Gender, and Inclusive Education at the University of Lincoln and her gendered experiences bring considerable knowledge to her role as both researcher and sports business management educator. Her research focuses on addressing and challenging gender inequalities and inequities across sport and education, and her work employs qualitative methods that prioritise ‘voice’ and people’s lived experiences.
Hanya strongly believes that sport reflects society and vice versa. A true culture shift strengthened by meaningful financial support, improved resources, and infrastructures is required to transform the current imbalanced landscape.
It is essential that the Government utilises the recent success of the Lionesses, England women’s national football team, to broker broader social change to tackle gender inequalities. Sport can be used as a source for good, to challenge and transform culture and society more widely.
Professor Hanya Pielichaty
Professor of Sport, Gender, and Inclusive Education
Hanya is programme lead for the MSc International Sports Business Management and Director of Student Inclusion at the Eleanor Glanville Institute, our dedicated centre for equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). Here, she leads several projects including the Inclusive Education Resource Hub, drawing together teaching and learning materials on inclusive education, and the Critical Pedagogies in Sport (CPIS) network, where academics from sports-based higher education disciplines globally, review and challenge inequities in teaching and learning.
In addition to her EDI work at the University, Hanya uses her research to inform sports organisations seeking to reduce inequalities in practice and holds trustee roles with the Active Partnerships national board and the Lincoln City Foundation board.
In 2022, she was also the academic front for the Let’s Move Lincolnshire refresh strategy consultancy project managed by the Centre for Organisational Resilience, leading the 16,000-word consultancy report which centred on equity and access. As a result of the project, Active Lincolnshire secured £2.6 million of funding from Sport England, demonstrating social and economic impact.
The positive impact of Hanya’s research was demonstrated in 2023, with an invitation to the Palace of Westminster to deliver evidence at the House of Commons Women in Sport Inquiry, where she called for societal change to tackle gender inequalities in sport and gave recommendations including practical methods to instigate change, stressing that access and participation should be a basic requirement.
Hanya studied for her PhD at Lincoln, with supervisors Professor Heather Hughes and Professor Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson. Commenting on her experience as a postgraduate research student, she said: “I found Lincoln to be a very supportive place to both study and teach and enjoyed the opportunities to attend conferences and share ideas with others.” Hanya is herself now supervising a PhD student in Lincoln International Business School, utilising these positive experiences.
In addition to her teaching duties, Hanya is a member of the University’s Visitor Economy Research Group and is Chair of the Lincoln International Business School EDI Committee. She is also an affiliated member of the Centre for Innovation in Fatherhood and Family Research at the University.
My own experiences of playing football in a male-dominated environment have contributed to my teaching philosophy. Enabling students to think critically about the world around them to positively contribute to society both drives and inspires me.
Professor Hanya Pielichaty
Professor of Sport, Gender, and Inclusive Education
Hanya is an international author, having written three textbooks including Football, Family, Gender and Identity (2021), and co-authoring Events Project Management (2017). Her newest publication, Gender, Sport and Society (2024), is one of very few textbooks linked to the sports business discipline to be sole-authored by a woman.
Hanya is now looking to co-author an edited book with her CPIS colleagues, taking a critical perspective approach of sport-based higher education programmes to help ensure that education provides meaningful opportunities to challenge injustices. Her future work also seeks to make sure a greater number of women are represented in sports business scholarship, and to increase the number of women studying sports business management.
Hear from Professor Hanya Pielichaty as she talks about her teaching roles on our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and her experiences of working at the University of Lincoln. She also discusses her research focus and how her work seeks to tackle the inequities in sport and society more broadly.
You can find out more about Professor Hanya Pielichaty's teaching, research, publications, and professional affiliations on her staff profile pages.
