Prof Breckon is Associate Dean for Research and Innovation in the School of Health and Life Sciences at Teesside University. In his previous position (until February 2022) he was Head of the Sport and Physical Activity Research Centre, leading a team of 55 researchers with an annual research income of c.£4m. Prof Breckon has generated c.£3.5m as a PI and CI and trained around 3500 health professionals in Motivational Interviewing. He is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT) and is a Chartered Exercise Psychologist and HCPC Practitioner Psychologist. He currently holds £1.2m in research grants with Innovate UK and the NHMRC.

He has presented internationally with over 80 invited keynotes and symposiums to a range of health professionals including physiotherapy, primary care, mental health, social work, workplace wellness, exercise and health and pharmacy.

Jeff has generated over £3.3m in research and consultancy in research projects focussing on physical activity and lifestyle behaviour change. His area of expertise lies in the use of behaviour change counselling such as MI-CBT to support patients in the initiation and maintenance of health behaviour change. He was CI on the NIHR funded PA Booster project (£1.2m) which targeted hard-to-reach sedentary populations with a combination of online and face-to-face therapies. This was the first large-scale RCT funded by NIHR to examine the impact of MI techniques to promote PA. He has also generated c.£250k in consultancy from workforce development projects focussing on the delivery and competency assessment of staff in developing patient communication skills. Breckon has lead or supported projects embedding PA behaviour change in a variety of settings including clinical contexts and workplace wellbeing. he was a CI on the AHSN funded Workplace Wellbeing in the NHS project for ten NHS sites (£345k), again leading on the MI training and fidelity components.

Supervision and Mentoring: 10 PhD students to completion, 5 ongoing and 15 Doctoral examinations (UK and international).