General Information

The Iberian Society of Biomechanics and Biomaterials was founded in 1977 with the aim of bringing together professionals from various disciplines, such as surgeons, doctors, engineers, physicists, chemists, and physical education specialists, providing a space for the exchange of ideas and promoting research.

As part of its services, the Society offers its members the journal “Biomechanics”, published twice a year, which includes reviews on specific topics, original works, abstracts of doctoral theses, information on conferences and activities, among other content. In addition, it organizes an annual symposium that presents round tables on topics such as traumatology and orthopaedics, biomaterials, and sports and occupational biomechanics. The symposium also includes oral and poster presentations by biomechanics researchers from Spain and Portugal, providing a valuable space to learn about the latest research and address multidisciplinary issues.

The Society also supports numerous specialized courses, postgraduate programs and seminars related to biomechanics and biomaterials, and establishes relations with other related scientific societies, actively participating in their events and congresses. Many of its members actively contribute to the dissemination and study of biomechanics, which is one of the main objectives of the Society.

The SIBB selects a different centre each year to celebrate its congress, and this year the event will be organized by the Sports Biomechanics Research Group (GIBD) due to its extensive experience and contributions to science in the field of sports biomechanics.

Within the Faculty of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences of the University of Valencia, around the year 2010, there was a need to establish a common space that would allow sharing experiences and establishing lines of action in the field of sports biomechanics. In its beginnings (2010), the group was made up of students in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences (University of Valencia), gradually joining doctoral students, collaborators and FPU / FPI scholarship holders. At the same time, the research group also has links with other researchers (from the University of Valencia itself and national/foreign universities), as well as with companies, technological institutes and/or clinics.

Since 2012, the Sports Biomechanics Research Group has been located at the Faculty of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences (Blasco Ibáñez Campus, Valencia), and since 2018 (Ontinyent Campus – University of Valencia). It is conceptualized as a multidisciplinary research team within the Faculty of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences (University of Valencia), whose core work is developed in the field of biomechanics applied to physical activity and sport.

Among the members and collaborators of the work team, the most prominent are professionals in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences, as well as contributions from other areas such as Textile Engineering, Telecommunications Engineering, Physics, Medicine, Podiatry, Physiotherapy, etc. Their research activity can be seen reflected through different contributions to scientific publications (JCR), communications and presentations at national and international conferences, as well as contributions to book chapters and even manuals of the group itself on applied sports biomechanics. The main fields of application of their contributions are in the sports industry, sports centres, technological institutes and high-performance centres (CAR).

The main lines of research, materialized through contracts, projects in public calls and/or research contracts, are developed in two large areas:

A) Line 1 – Sports material and equipment: Evaluation and analysis of material, sports equipment and clothing, especially plantar supports, footwear, compression fabrics, and other textile clothing materials.

B) Line 2 – Evaluation and biomechanical analysis of physical activity, especially during running, walking and cycling, as well as the analysis of sports activity from the applied perspective of sports biomechanics and physiological variables.

The research activity developed is possible thanks to the knowledge and application of specific instrumentation in the area of sports biomechanics, being GIBD avant-garde and expert in the application of accelerometry, thermography, dynamometry, pressuremetry techniques, as well as the evaluation and analysis of the perception of comfort/fatigue during physical/sports activity.

The Ontinyent University Campus was created in the 1998-1999 academic year, where the Diploma in Business Sciences began to be taught. Three years later, in the 2001-2002 academic year, the academic offer was expanded with the Diploma in Early Childhood Education.

In the 2014-2015 academic year with the Degree in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences and in the 2017-2018 academic year with the implementation of the Degree in Nursing.

The academic offering was expanded with the implementation of the Master’s Degree in General Health Psychology in the 2022-2023 academic year, the first class of which will end this 2023-2024 academic year.