Why Sheffield's Advanced Wellbeing Research centre is a tonic for Yorkshire - Professor Robert Copeland

I’m not an up-with-the-larks person, so if the day starts with a ‘5’ it means I’m either off to London, to the airport or doing my son’s paper round because he’s not well.

Normally, the morning consists of tea, letting the dog out, checking the weather to see if I’ll need waterproofs and fighting for the bathroom, the cereal, the kettle and some attention.

I used to have email on my personal phone, which meant I’d also be answering emails whilst drinking my morning cuppa, but it was all-consuming. I now have a separate phone for work and this doesn’t get switched on until I’m in the office.

I prep for the day the night before. I’m not a natural planner but find that 10 minutes prep the night before makes the difference the next day.

It’s all about making things easy by reducing the amount of decisions that I need to make, as my day is often full of them.

I ride my bike to work. It’s quicker, easier and better for the environment, good for my health, but most of all I enjoy it.

It gives me space to think, but just the process of riding, being in the moment is very satisfying. Sheffield isn’t Amsterdam or Copenhagen – yet – but you can still get about by bike and there are some interesting routes if you take time to discover them.

My commute used to take me to the Collegiate Campus of the University but as of January, I’m now based full-time at the Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park in Darnall, as director of the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre (AWRC).

The AWRC is a world-leading centre for research and innovation into physical activity, with a vision to transform lives through innovations that help people move.

It is dedicated to the prevention and treatment of chronic disease through co-designed research into physical activity. It’s a great place to work and I’m excited by the challenge of leading it.

By 8.15am I’m at my desk. I’ll look through social media to see what’s happening, and perhaps tweet about something that’s caught my interest, and then it’s on to the in-box before the meetings start.

My first meeting is a discussion with human resources about the role profile for the deputy director of the AWRC that we will be advertising early February.

The meeting finishes with a tour of the new facility (as most meetings do in the new building). I then have a 30-minute catch-up with the head of operations at the AWRC, before a Skype call with sport and exercise medicine colleagues in Mauritius.

We’ve been working with the government in Mauritius to help drive change in public health and I’m working with colleagues in the AWRC to help establish physical activity as a core part of their medical services.

Through the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine in Sheffield (which is another of my hats), and in partnership with Public Health England and Sport England, we’ve already trained GPs and Allied Health Professionals to become physical activity champions across Mauritius – so we are making an impact.

At the AWRC we have a vision to establish a prehabilitation and rehabilitation service that supports people with a cancer diagnosis, prior to and post acute treatment and after lunch I have a meeting exploring this in more detail with the team here and regional stakeholders and funders.

This type of service doesn’t currently exist in South Yorkshire and so this could be game-changing for the region.

My third meeting of the day – we’re talking morphology. At the AWRC we use 3D imaging technology to understand how external shape and size influences human health and performance and one of our researchers, Dr Simon Choppin, has a vision to apply this technique to support improvements across the health and care system.

It’s a fascinating area of research and it is already making a difference to people’s lives.

I listen to Simon share his vision to support people in our city and beyond into better health and wellbeing and I’m ever more convinced and excited by the mission we have set out with the AWRC.

At 4pm, I jump on my bike and it’s a quick 15-minute pedal to the university’s city centre campus for my final meeting of the day with the deputy vice-chancellor.