Western Sydney University

Western Sydney University’s World Leisure Centre of Excellence (WLCE) provides a hub for interdisciplinary knowledge and innovation in leisure research and practice, while celebrating and empowering the vibrant, diverse community of Western Sydney and beyond. Through cutting-edge and collaborative teaching, research and community engagement, and with a commitment to sustainability principles, the Centre of Excellence at Western Sydney University aims to contribute to creating a thriving, inclusive, and resilient community in which all members enjoy their human right to leisure.

Western’s WLCE brings together the work of scholars from different disciplinary fields whose research and practice focus on leisure studies, broadly conceived, as it relates to the health and wellbeing of our communities. Members of our Centre of Excellence work in areas as diverse as health, business, social sciences, education, psychology, medicine, youth studies, and cultural studies; but all are interested in the various ways in which leisure is understood and engaged, whether through sport, arts, tourism, festivals and events, recreation, or physical activity and the way these impact on individual and community health and wellbeing.

Western Sydney University brings to the World Leisure Centre of Excellence network an additional southern hemisphere focus and location, but also a particular emphasis on the exploration of leisure amongst Indigenous peoples, within Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Although it is highly urbanised, Western Sydney has the largest Indigenous population of any region in Australia, and Western Sydney University will open its Indigenous Centre of Excellence in 2026.

The Centre is established in the School of Health Sciences, but other Schools and Institutes involved include the School of Social Sciences, School of Humanities and Communication Arts, School of Business, School of Education, School of Medicine, School of Psychology, the Institute for Culture and Society, the Translational Health Research Institute, and the MARCS Institute. Staff members in the team include early to mid-career researchers, from Associate Lecturers to Lecturers and Senior Lecturers, to senior academics, including Associate Professors, Professors and Emeritus Professors. All staff members in the team have also strong connections to practitioners and industry partners, including from government and non-government organisations, who they bring to contribute to the Centre’s activities.

Leisure research conducted at Western encompass a broad range of topics including:

• Sport
• Physical activity and exercise
• Recreational therapy
• Arts therapy
• Music therapy
• Outdoor recreation and education
• Tourism
• Hospitality
• Events
• Heritage
• Cultural citizenship
• Media practices
• Urban and cultural planning

These topics usually intersect with major social themes such as gender, race, human rights and rapid technological changes, as well as address key sustainable development goals, making the work of the academic team extremely relevant to the communities in which they live, work and play.