Vanesa España: Bridging research and sport in a vocation for excellence

Vanesa España is a lecturer in the Department of Didactics of Physical Education, Plastic and Musical Education, a career she has combined with her passion for climbing

In the Indiana Jones film saga, what surprised audiences most was not the search for the Holy Grail, cushioning a plane crash with an inflatable raft, or the fact that Sean Connery played Harrison Ford's father despite their small age difference. It was the idea that the protagonist could combine a demanding, adventurous lifestyle with academic research. At the University of Cádiz, there is a similar case in which a passion for physical challenge and academic excellence come together naturally.

Vanesa España is a climber and a lecturer in the Department of Didactics of Physical Education, Plastic and Musical Education. A member of the Institute of Research and Innovation in Biomedical Sciences (INiBICA), she has recently taught a micro-credential course on climbing that has attracted students from different parts of the world to the University of Cádiz. In this interview, she reflects on how personal passion and academic research can be combined.

Her career combines research, teaching and a close relationship with sport. How would you summarise your professional journey before joining the University of Cádiz?

In my case, everything started with climbing. I discovered it as a teenager, when it was still quite a minority sport, and for me it became a kind of compass. It gave me motivation, helped me find a very healthy environment and, above all, sparked a deep curiosity about performance: why we improve, how we train and what happens in the body when we practise sport. That curiosity led me to study Physical Activity and Sport Sciences.

Over time, I specialised in high performance and began my PhD on the physiology of sport climbing, which was very unusual at the time. There was hardly any research in Spain and very little internationally, so it was a pioneering stage, almost like opening a path from scratch. I remember a very symbolic moment: when I started my PhD, I wrote to Phil Watts, one of the few researchers working on climbing at the time, asking for papers I couldn't find. He sent them to me by post, along with others I didn't know about. It may sound anecdotal now, but for me it was exciting-it made me realise that this field truly existed and that I could perhaps contribute to building it.

I later had the opportunity to train and work at internationally renowned institutions such as the Karolinska Institute, universities in the United States like Northern Michigan University and the University of South Carolina, and finally the University of Cambridge. These experiences helped me consolidate my research career and connect the two lines that still define my work today: health-physical activity, fitness and exercise in relation to health-and climbing as a scientific field of study.

I have never stopped researching climbing, even though it has been a very niche field with limited funding. Perhaps that is why I feel especially attached to it, as it has been built with strong conviction, persistence and an international network of people who believed it was worth developing. After almost seven years abroad, I returned to Andalusia. Joining the University of Cádiz allowed me to come back closer to home while continuing to teach, research and contribute from here.

What has your international experience contributed to your development as a researcher?

It has been essential. Although I always like to point out that my career began in a highly demanding environment at the University of Granada, within a very strong research group. There I learned something that has stayed with me ever since: research is about teamwork, consistency and also a well-understood sense of ambition.

Going abroad allowed me to continue learning in leading institutions and, above all, to work alongside people doing top-level science. I approached each stage as an opportunity to observe, listen, accept feedback and learn different ways of working, taking the best from each place.

Each country and institution has its own scientific culture, and experiencing these differences has given me a broader perspective. It has made me more flexible, more rigorous and more open to collaboration. It has also allowed me to build an international network of colleagues that I still rely on today. Perhaps most importantly, all this experience feeds directly into my work at the university-how I design projects, work with students and understand research as a whole.

Her work is structured around two main research lines: the promotion of physical activity for health and the physiological study of climbing. How do these areas connect within your research?

At first, these two lines were not as closely connected as they might seem from the outside. In my early years, research on climbing and research on physical activity and health developed more in parallel, although I always tried to make them inform each other. I was fortunate to complete my PhD in Medicine in a very open environment, where I was allowed to develop a thesis on sport climbing at a time when it was a highly unusual topic, while also participating in large European projects related to physical activity, fitness and health.That combination was very important, because much of the methodological knowledge I gained in the field of health could also be applied to climbing. For example, when working on how to assess certain physical capacities or improve measurement quality, I was always thinking about how to transfer that knowledge to such a specific sport as climbing.

Over time, I have tried to bring both lines closer together, especially in the field of mental health. One example is the SONRIE project, where I was particularly interested in exploring the potential of physical activity in natural environments as an intervention for people with depression. My initial idea even included activities such as climbing, as scientific literature already suggested significant benefits in this area. Although the pandemic forced us to redesign the project, that interest remains: how to apply what we know about exercise, nature and specific practices like climbing to improve health. I would say that this is where both lines meet. One has given me tools and a broad perspective on health; the other has always been my most vocational line and the one that motivates me the most personally.

Many early-career researchers hesitate to study topics related to their personal passions. What has your experience been in this regard? How has being a climber influenced your research?

In my case, studying a topic so closely linked to a personal passion has not been a limitation-quite the opposite, it has been a constant source of motivation. I had a strong vocation and a deep curiosity to better understand a sport that, at the time, still had a lot to contribute from a scientific perspective. Climbing was, and in many ways still is, a field full of unanswered questions, so it made complete sense for me to focus my research there.

Being a climber has helped me identify relevant questions-questions that arise directly from practice and from the doubts that climbers themselves have. Many of them may seem simple, but answering them rigorously required building a methodological foundation that barely existed at the time.

I believe this dual perspective-as both a researcher and an athlete-has greatly enriched my work. It allows me to better understand the context, formulate more meaningful questions and generate knowledge that can truly contribute to the sport. Of course, there is also a paradox: dedicating so much time to researching climbing sometimes means having less time to practise it as much as I would like. But ultimately, both aspects are part of the same vocation.

Part of your research focuses on the prevention of diseases such as Alzheimer's or obesity through physical activity. Do you think physical activity should be strengthened as a key element of public health?

Yes, absolutely. Although I would clarify that my research has not been primarily focused on specific diseases such as Alzheimer's or obesity, but rather on physical activity, fitness and their relationship with health. In my early career, I worked mainly with adolescent populations, with a strong methodological focus, contributing to the development and validation of tools to assess physical fitness, such as the ALPHA battery, which originated as a European initiative and has since achieved wide international recognition.

This work was important because it helped provide reliable instruments to assess fitness from a health perspective. Throughout my career, I have also studied the relationship between physical activity, fitness, morbidity and mortality in both young and adult populations, often in international contexts. All of this has given me a clear understanding of how closely movement and physical condition are linked to health and prevention.

From that perspective, I believe physical activity should play a much more central role in public health. Although awareness has increased, we are still far from translating scientific evidence into consistent structures, resources and policies. We know that movement is essential for both physical and mental health, yet we continue to live in increasingly sedentary environments.

For this reason, it is not enough to simply recommend exercise. We need real strategies, coordination across sectors and qualified professionals who can design and supervise programmes adapted to different populations. One of the key challenges is to better integrate professionals in Physical Activity and Sport Sciences into health systems. Progress is being made, but there is still a long way to go before this integration becomes structural rather than dependent on isolated initiatives.

As a researcher and university lecturer, what do you consider the main challenges in research on physical activity and health in the coming years?

I believe that one of the main challenges is no longer demonstrating that physical activity is beneficial, because that scientific evidence has been solid for many years. The real challenge now is to ensure that this knowledge translates into real changes in people's lives and in public policies. We live in increasingly sedentary societies, in environments that often promote inactivity. Therefore, it is essential to develop strategies that facilitate physical activity in everyday life, from childhood to older age.

Another important challenge is moving towards more personalised exercise prescription that is better integrated into healthcare systems. Each person has different characteristics, needs and contexts, and exercise should be adapted accordingly, with the support of qualified professionals. In this regard, strengthening the role of professionals in Physical Activity and Sport Sciences within prevention and health promotion programmes will be key.

Finally, I think it is also important to continue exploring areas that have received less attention, such as the relationship between physical activity, nature and psychological well-being. In an increasingly complex social context, movement has not only physical effects, but also emotional and social ones, and there is still much to be researched in this field.

The micro-credential Climbing: An interdisciplinary approach to sports performance has recently concluded. Does its success demonstrate the need for multidisciplinary approaches in sport?

Yes, I believe it clearly does. One of the most rewarding aspects of this micro-credential has been confirming that there is a real demand for this type of training. Climbing, if approached rigorously, cannot be understood from a single discipline. It requires the integration of physiology, training, medicine, psychology and other complementary perspectives.

That has been one of the main strengths of the programme: bringing together a truly interdisciplinary approach and applying it specifically to climbing. To my knowledge, there is no other programme at an international level with this degree of specialisation and combination of areas. The response from students has been very significant, with participants from different regions of Spain and also from various countries in Europe and Latin America, and even beyond.

For me, it has also been a very special experience, as it has allowed me to translate many years of research into teaching. In a way, it has been an opportunity to organise, share and transfer knowledge accumulated over time, and to do so from the University of Cádiz has been particularly meaningful. It also highlights the potential of the university in this field, especially through facilities such as the climbing wall at the Faculty of Education Sciences.

Finally, a more personal question: what tends to surprise people more-telling climbers that you are a researcher with more than 70 scientific publications, or telling your academic colleagues that you are a climber?

It really depends on the context. In scientific environments where we work directly on climbing research, it is not surprising that I also climb. The surprise tends to arise more in other academic or health-related contexts, where climbing is not something people usually expect.

In the climbing world, it is a bit different. When I go climbing, I try to completely disconnect from work, so I do not usually talk much about my research activity. People know I work at a university, but they do not necessarily know the details. For me, climbing is mainly a way to enjoy sport and recharge outside the professional environment.