Dr Lindsay Findlay-King

Associate Professor

School: Sport Exercise and Rehabilitation

Lindsay Findlay-King is the Faculty Director for Quality Assurance at HLS and has been an academic at Northumbria University for over 25 years. Throughout her career, she has taught a wide range of sport management subjects, currently focusing on volunteering and governance. Lindsay teaches across all academic levels, from level 3 to level 7.

She holds a BA (Hons) in Modern History and Politics and an MA (with distinction) in Leisure Management, both from Sheffield University. Her primary research interests lie in sport volunteering, particularly in the areas of community asset transfer for sport facilities, inclusive volunteering, volunteer management, and the volunteer experience.

Lindsay has also served as an examiner for PhD theses focused on sport volunteering in the UK and is the Chair of the UK Sports Volunteering Research Network—a network that aims to facilitate the interchange of information, ideas, and practice in the research of sport volunteers, especially between researchers and practitioners.

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Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Lindsay’s doctoral research focused on a qualitative, life history based, exploration of sport participation, experience, and identity in the transition into mid-life. However her greatest research interest lies in sport volunteering. She has been involved extensively in sport volunteering experience, recruitment and retention studies, from uniformed youth organisations to sports club settings. Her current research interests focus on the asset transfer of local authority sport (and library) facilities to voluntary community groups, including the successful management and sustainability of these enterprises. This has included case studies across the UK and a current study of the transfer of five sports centres in one UK local authority and the lessons learnt for local authority and voluntary groups. This work is disseminated through academic publications, research conferences, the UK SVRN and on a hub created with the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity (see https://www.cimspa.co.uk/library-and-guidance/research-hub).

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Developing Sports Volunteering, Hayton, J., Findlay-King, L., Marks, K. 23 Sep 2025, Management of Sports Development, London, Routledge
Exploring identity work of LGBT+ volunteers in sport through personas: the advocate, the community-minded and the sportsperson, Lahti, S., Allin, L., Findlay-King, L. 4 Jul 2025, In: European Sport Management Quarterly
Exploring Sports Students Orientations Toward Volunteering In A Post-1992 University, Hayton, J., Findlay-King, L., Allin, L., Ørneberg, T. 5 Sep 2025, European Association for Sport Management Conference
The emergence of organisations conducting Community Asset Transfers of leisure facilities, Haw, S., Potrac, P., Wharton, K., Findlay-King, L. 4 May 2025, In: Managing Sport and Leisure
The role of mutual aid in meeting society’s needs: the example of community sports clubs’ responses to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, Nichols, G., Reid, F., Findlay-King, L. 1 Mar 2025, In: Voluntary Sector Review
Understanding human capacity and challenges for the transfer of community sport assets, Findlay-King, L., Allin, L. 2 Dec 2025, In: Leisure Studies
Understandings of success for groups managing leisure facilities through Community Asset Transfers, Haw, S., Potrac, P., Wharton, K., Findlay-King, L. 1 Mar 2025, In: Voluntary Sector Review
The response of voluntary community sports clubs to COVID-19, Nichols, G., Findlay-King, L., Reid, F. 30 Sep 2022, COVID-19 and the Voluntary and Community Sector in the UK, Bristol, Policy Press
The community asset transfer of leisure facilities in the UK: a review and research agenda., Nichols, G., Findlay-King, L., Forbes, D. 1 Dec 2020, In: Voluntas
United Kingdom, Reid, F., Findlay-King, L. 14 Feb 2019, Sports Volunteers Around the Globe Meaning and Understanding of Volunteering and its Societal Impact, Switzerland, Springer