Yoonkyu Song received the 2026 Young Scholar Award from the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport (ISHPES) and delivered a highly acclaimed keynote lecture at this year’s congress in Taipei (Taiwan). In his keynote presentation, he discussed comparative aspects of the history of sport in general, and specifically in Germany and Korea.
In addition, Yoonkyu Song is conducting research and pursuing his PhD in the Department of Education and Culture in Sport at the IfS Münster and is a volunteer research assistant at the Willibald Gebhardt Institute (WGI). Through the WGI, the OSRC’s 11+ Network and the European Council for Research in Physical Education and School Sport, he is actively involved in international networks for the history of sport and Olympic studies.
His doctoral thesis, provisionally entitled ‘Memory, Critique, and Adjustment: A Comparative Historical Study of Sport Development in West Germany and South Korea during the Cold War’, supervised by Prof. Dr Michael Krüger, examines the development of sport systems and changing conceptions of sport and physical culture in West Germany and South Korea, with a focus on sport policy, physical education, sport science and the Olympic Movement.