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Oslo Research Center for Women’s Sport, Physical Activity and Health

ORC-WSPAH is a research and knowledge center dedicated to women’s health - both within and beyond sports - across all life stages and regardless of ability or ethnicity.

Focus areas

ORC-WSPAH's projects focus on challenges in sport, physical acitivty, and health among women:

Exercise during pregnancy and postpartum
Pelvic floor
Body image
Eating disorders
REDs and low energy availiability
Puberty
Menopause
Mental health
Harassment and abuse

Education and courses

ORC-WSPAH develops and organizes courses, seminars, and workshops to increase knowledge about women's health among healthcare professionals, coaches, athletes, and other relevant stakeholders.

Female Athlete - Health and Performance [English], (Online course, 10 ECTS, Fall/Spring)

Vision

ORS-WSPAH's vision is to strengthen girls’ and women’s health, function, and performance throughout the lifespan by developing and applying research-based exercise medicine in safe, inclusive, and knowledge-based sports and activity environments, and to facilitate high-level performance in athletes while maintaining good health.

Aim

The center's goal is to strengthen Norway's leading position in research on physical activity, sport, and women's health and to promote public health through evidence-based initiatives. This is achieved by conducting research on relevant challenges, developing evidence-based guidelines and measures that enhance women's health at various activity levels from a life-course perspective, creating a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration between students, researchers, healthcare professionals, coaches, and athletes, and providing specialized counseling and training to ensure that research-based knowledge is quickly translated into practice.

About the Center

ORC-WSPAH was established in 2025, and is affiliated at the Department of Sports Medicine at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. The center has an interdisciplinary research group consisting of PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers, researchers, and professors who conduct their own research, education, and dissemination projects, as well as collaborate closely with other departments at NIH and institutions both nationally and internationally.