Dr. Alexis Lyras’ thirty years Olympic Studies and global sport industry experience,grantsmanship, scholarship and academic training is centered on the educational, impact assessment and management aspects of Olympism in Action: the application of Olympic Education as a peace building platform for social innovation and Sustainable Development. This framework has served as a blue print for his MA, PhD and Post-doctoral work, with scholarship and grants received from the Olympic Solidarity, the Research& Innovation Foundation, the United Nations and Generations for Peace.
Lyras’s extensive management and applied field-experimental research experience on Olympism and SFD programming has led to the development of Olympism For Humanity (O4H) and Sport for Development Theories (SFDT), the first and most widely used applied theories in this field. The central function of these theories aims to provide an integrated Olympic Education-SFD universal platform across disciplines and contexts for assessing and enriching, personal andinstitutional capacity- and to optimize the impact of Olympism and sport as anenabler for peace and sustainable development events and programming. O4H and SFDT provide solid practical recommendations as an Olympism for Sustainable Development competency framework (O4H Literacy & Actualization).
Lyras started out his career in Sports Coaching where he was a celebrated basketball coach at local, national and international levels. His intellectual curiosity took him to Academia where for over twenty years he has been examining and creating thought leadership on how the practical application of Olympic Education can be a vehicle for Peace building, Social Innovation and Sustainable Development. Lyras has designed, secured and implemented projects around the world where his primary interest was to drive measurable interventions to bring together communities through sport and education. He is a passionate Olympic Values advocate and a proud member of the Olympic Movement, seeking for opportunities where he can optimize the impact of Olympism in Society.
