About us

On April 12th 2002, Dutch sport researchers and sport scientists joined forces in the Mulier Institute, Centre for Research on Sports in Society. The mission of the institute is to stimulate the coordination, synchronization and cooperation of more fundamental and policy based scholarly sports research in the Netherlands. The three main tasks of the institute are the monitoring of developments in sports, to comprehend and explain current (policy) issues and to communicate and discuss knowledge on sports and society.

The institute is named after W.J.H. (Pim) Mulier (1865-1954), who may be regarded as the patriarch of Dutch organized sport. He was (partly) responsible for the foundation of the Dutch Football Association (KNVB), the Dutch Athletics Union (KNAU) and the International Ice-Skating Union (ISU) and was also one of the initiators of several major sporting events, such as the Eleven Cities ice-skating marathon and the International Nijmegen Four Day Marches.