The project develop a collaboration synergy in the field of sport for students and professional athletes and establish a network among the universities involved and other parties that are related to the sports development, linking this to a tutorial of the athletes so that they can combine their higher education with professional sports. This project aims at developing a European “Sport Tutorship” model at Universities that will allow high-level students-athletes further develop their dual career across Europe. The ultimate goal is therefore to facilitate, through the Sport Tutorship, the integration of athletes into the University context, by maintaining their sport career performance.
Summary
The quality by which athletes are able to combine their athletic career with their educational pathway through secondary and higher education impacts not only their educational and athletic development but also their vocational development and employability during as well as after their athletic career. This project develops and implements guidelines (cfr. EU Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes, 2012) by focusing on the need to enhance (a) athletes’ competences for developing their own dual career pathway and (b) the quality of dual career support experts/services provided to athletes preparing, managing and/or finalizing a dual career ‘education and sport’ pathway. It will (a) describe the competences, instruments and methods required by (a selection of) ±5.000 12-to-18 year old and ±4.400 18-to-25 year old athletes to successfully prepare, manage and finalize their dual career ‘education and sport’ pathway; (b) develop a profile of competences as well as instruments and methods required by (a selection of) 525 dual career experts/support providers working with athletes in a dual career ‘education and sport’ pathway. Results will be disseminated via a website, social networks, articles/presentations, reports and dedicated workshops and conference. This project is innovative and has an added value at EU level as it (a) provides competence profiles for athletes and dual career support providers as well as instruments and techniques to optimize dual career support services, (b) is conducted by a consortium of internationally renowned experts from research as well as from dual career services in elite sport from nine countries from North, East, South and West of Europe, and (c) provides the basis for a European framework of reference for athletes’ competences regarding this dual career pathway and competences of dual career support providers allowing for a European guide within existing or newly to be developed dual career services within the Member States.
Developing an innovative European Sport Tutorship model for the dual career of athletes
Summary
The general idea of this new project is to establish a collaboration synergy in the field of sport for professional athletes and to establish a network among the universities involved and other parties that are related to the sports development, linking this to a tutorial of the athletes so that they can combine their higher education with professional sports. This project aims at developing a European “Sport Tutorship” model at Universities that will allow high-level students-athletes further develop their dual career across Europe. The ultimate goal is therefore to facilitate, through the Sport Tutorship, the integration of athletes into the University context, by maintaining their sport career performance. Project actions and outcomes: • Development of a Network at regional, national and European level (in at least 5 countries) among project partners, related to the topic “Sport Tutorship” covered by the project. Such network would bring together students/athletes, coaches, professors, educational institutions, sport authorities and organizations and other relevant stakeholders. It would work as a forum for cooperation and exchange of knowledge and good practices. • Production of a comparative study / analysis of the situation on the academic and sport regulations applied by the Universities to the students/athletes. • Development of an innovative “Sport Tutorship” programme in the form of a Handbook which will combine methodology, guidelines, recommendations and conclusions. • Implementation and validation of the Sporrt Tutorship programme in the participating Universities, for at least one academic year. Under the supervision of a third party “EuroPartnership Foundation”. • Organization and development of 4 Workshops on Dual Career issues (2) and on the Sport Tutorship programe (2). Target audience would range from students-athletes, Sport Faculties’ staff to public authorities and other sport stakeholders. • Communication and dissemination actions
Regional Center for Dual Career Policy and Advocacy
Summary
The DC4AC project’s general aim is to develop a functional organism, the Regional Center for Dual Career, being an excellence pole for dual career awareness, monitoring, evaluation and research in involved Countries. Moreover, the project aims at understanding the athletes’ actual needs and expectations concerning dual career and the current opinion of some main sport authorities about the situation of dual career in their respective countries. Another aim concerns exploring the actual situation on dual career’s good practices developed in each Country involved, and creating concrete tools, such as workshop, campaigns, e-learning platform in order to facilitate the dual career of athletes from a practical point of view. After collecting all good practices from DC4AC involved Countries, we put them together and create the present “Handbook of Best Practices in Dual Career of Athletes in countries implicated in the DC4AC project”, involving experiences from Romania, Slovenia, Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Italy and Bulgaria.
After 2 years of implementation, starting on January 2016 with the Kick Off event and closing in December 2017 with the Final Conference both organised by INEFC in Barcelona (Spain), TASEM has managed to satisfactorily accomplish the objectives set at the beginning.
In the first place, it has consolidated a transnational network of sports organisations, universities and public bodies across the EU, with a shared commitment towards the promotion of dual careers for athletes. The network has successfully cooperated with Olympic Committees of the MENA region in this field too.
In the second place, the network has facilitated training in the management of organisation of sport events (the so-called TPISEM programme) for 36 Athletes from Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Portugal, Serbia, as well as from Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria & Syria. In addition, TASEM has facilitated training, experience exchange and knowledge sharing on different training methods and athletes' management, organising events alongside the training programme for athletes, with 17 Coaches from these countries.
As planned in the preparation step of TASEM (proposal), the project has been rolled out through a planning phase in which the different universities involved discussed the design of the Academic programme and its main contents, and appointed the professors required to prepare and facilitate the training. It is remarkable that the project has involved 26 different professors and representatives from sports organisations from 8 different nationalities, in the facilitation of 240 hours of lectures and the oversee of 160 hours of volunteering work experience. The lecture hours were equally distributed around 4 main themes, notably Humanities & Society, Organisation & Events, Entrepreneurship & Setting up a Business, and Languages.
Through the planning phase, sports organisations also sought the identification of athletes and coaches who would benefit from TASEM activities. The identification and selection has been based on the following criteria set in the Kick Off following the agreement of the partners: finding a 50% balance between women and men; age between 18 to 30 years old; minimum secondary school or equivalent diploma, and preferably a university degree; active athlete in the past 3 years, competing at national level in individual sports; average English language skills; motivation for taking part in the TASEM project.
The implementation phase has consisted of organisation & logistics arrangement to mobilise professors, athletes & coaches to the different training emplacements, located in Spain and Italy. The key milestone of the project was the Mediterranean Games expected to happen in Tarragona in July 2017. Although the project had initially foreseen to hold its practical training alongside this important event, the cancellation of the Games brought other opportunities for learning. TASEM managed to identify the ICF World Championship near La Seu d'Urgell (SP) as an interesting sports event to run the practical training module. The academic programme closure was held alongside the Final Congress of TASEM, which counted with more than 200 participants.
So, all in all, TASEM has rolled out an ambitious mobility scheme in which all target groups involved have benefited from: athletes gaining valuable experiences abroad and developing a range of appealing skills and competences, in addition to relations with other EU & MENA athletes; coaches gaining new competences and exchanging good practices in sports training; professors and sports organisations' representatives sharing insights on how to promote dual careers. As a tangible result of the exchanges undergone and relations established, business plans have been formulated by groups of athletes from different nationalities.
Athlets Learning Entrepreneurship – a new Type of Dual Career Approach
Summary
INTRODUCTION
35 % of the EU-member countries assess the development of their national support scheme in dual career in professional sports negatively (cf. European Commission, 2017). The more important are and will become the educational cooperation on European level. The vocational training and the further education are an important part besides the existing tertiary education and the adult education of elite athletes. AtLETyC came in exactly at this point. The goal was to enable the entrepreneurship potential of athletes with a European educational program for European elite athletes in 6 countries. AtLETyC was developed under the coordination of FH JOANNEUM with partners from Austria, Italy, Lithuania, Slovenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Hungary. The concept was to teach a mix of national and international modules. The compact training program comprised of a 6 weeks’ online course in English as well as a presence phase of 4 days offered to the athletes a tailor-made know-how in the extent of 3 ECTS. The AtLETyC MOOC enabled the target group to learn time-independent and also location flexible and offered an interactive learning experience in an international setting.
RESULTS
In the piloting year 2017/18 127 European athletes successfully completed the training program. The project goal to educate 90 athletes from 6 partner countries were exceeded by far. 63 % of the participants received a certificate on the successful attendance of the AtLETyC MOOC, clearly above the average success rate of 10 %. This was possible due to the intensive support of the athletes by the entire project team.
FUTURE
It is planned to continue the success of the project and to offer AtLETyC sustainably. In this context we plan to further develop the existing training and to build new modules for an AtLETyC 2.0.
AFTERMATCH project tackles the situation in which athletes experience an high risk of a traumatic and unproductive exit from the sport’s world: in other words, the project pays attention to the last part of an athletes career, especially for non-professional athletes or for athletes not equipped with a safe “professional parachute” during the jump into the labour market. The main focus is on “pre-emptive exit strategy planning adoption”, on “evaluation and raising awareness about useful sport-related soft skills” and finally on “innovative exit-oriented training modules to be included in traditional institutionalized training paths”. For these reasons, AFTERMATCH considered the meso-dimension of dual career (e.g. trainers, coaches, sport managers, etc.) the actors with the more relevant role in creating the conditions for a successful exit strategy of the athlete from his/her sport career. So said, AFTERMACTH project contributed to increase the knowledge about Dual Career through a small scale survey about the situation of dual career in Europe and in particular in 5 European South – Eastern Countries (Italy, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Poland and Greece), which provided a solid base for the development of a new intervention model. The AFTERMATCH Model is an innovative training tool, aiming at promoting transition to post-sport career in traditional training paths by valorising sport-related acquired transversal skills, and dedicated to 3 different targets: sport trainers/coaches and managers (Module A); teachers and professors of schools or academies (Module B); employers and HR managers in the public and private companies (Module C). The model had been tested and validated in 5 different EU countries and the feedbacks collected created the base for a fine-tuning of the Model and for a formal adoption: 20 protocols had been signed by sport-related stakeholders committing to include AFTERMATCH models in their usual training paths.
Empowerment of Basketball players through a sustainable dual career and a good governance governance training supporting programme
Summary
The TIME-OUT project, which was the first of its kind in the basketball community, was hugely successful and not only achieved the initial target set by the management team but exceeded many expectations. The highlights of the project that will be expended below were excellent education opportunities for a large group of elite basketball players (male and female) from more than 35 nations working together to a common goal improving their skills in sports management, business knowledge, presentations skills and project delivery among others.Furthermore, the excellent networking opportunities provided by the project and access to career pathways and support network were greatly appreciated by all 80 participants and their national federations.Most importantly, this project raised awareness among all basketball players in Europe and beyond the importance of suitable preparation and planning for a post-playing career as well as access to mentoring and support network.The project management team and other senior managers from FIBA and FIBA Europe provided individual advise and career placement on a case-by-case basis.A significant added value to the actual project delivery is the legacy program which involves specific research into the academic program and direct input by the TIME-OUT alumni (the graduates).This research will be ongoing and will be the basis of future sustainable players support educational program that will be developed by FIBA.
Purpose of the project:
- To open new opportunities and pathways in the lives of players who would like to remain in basketball after retirement by sustainable and continued support throughout their studying and work placement.
- To strengthen the good governance of basketball national federations and other sports organizations by identifying and developing their weaknesses.
- To achieve a sustainable cooperation between FIBA, the national federations and other Basketball organizations by creating further education programmes for players.
Sportupps: sport-based entrepreneurship and startupps
Summary
The project “Sportups: sport-based entrepreneurship and startups” involves and brings together a group of three organizations actively engaged in sports, social entrepreneurship and youth sector. Starting from the concept that the sport can be used as tool for fostering entrepreneurship, promoting dual careers of athletes and supporting good governance in sport, the projects aims to collect all the partners’ good practices in the sphere of sport entrepreneurship and sport-based startups and to design and test an innovative training module combining sport training and acquisition of basic entrepreneurship skills. The training module consist of general principles to be followed when designing training programs for athletes and young people involved in sport, based on the integrative approach of combining sport activities with entrepreneurial tools, frameworks and thinking. The Sportups training module contain innovative tools and techniques especially created to accompany training activities in order to foster entrepreneurship thinking and skills acquisition and to create an innovative and much needed model for transition to the post-sport careers. It includes high quality pre-designed training techniques complemented with case studies and best practices examples for trainers and coaches ready to be used in different sport activities. The partnership carries some preliminary research and then it adopts and test the training module in 3 countries with the collaboration of experienced trainers and coaches, 3 sport teams and more than 60 young sportspeople and coaches.
The project is relevant to more general European strategic priorities in the field of sport. Its concept is based on the principals stated in the EU Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes Recommended Policy Actions in Support of Dual Careers in High - Performance Sport, as the project:
- Supports the safeguarding of the development of young athletes by providing awareness-raising activities of the importance of balance between education and sport training and early developing of awareness that sport
- Encourages the balance and integration between sports training and education and, at a later stage of life, the balance between sports training and employment by creating training module combining sport activities with entrepreneurship training
- Will generate knowledge and case study example that can be further exploited and possibly lead to the introduction and implementation of dual career programmes based on entrepreneurship education;
- Proposes a training module that is based on the combination between sports training and general education in the framework of a lifelong learning strategy;
- Will raise the quality of the supporting services offered by coaches and trainers including psychological, educational and career assistance;
- Promotes collaboration with athletes' social support network (e.g. coaches, peers, parents, players associations and sport clubs/organisations).
In addition, the Sportups project corresponds directly to the Communication on sport (2011) : developing the European dimension in sport and it is consistent with the European Union Work Plan for Sport (2014-2017) as it focuses on:
- the integrity of sport, in particular the protection of minors, and good governance;
- the economic dimension of sport, in particular economic benefits of sport and innovation;
- Sport and society, in particular HEPA, employment in sport as well as education and training in sport.
B-WISER Be a Winner In elite Sport and Employment before and after athletic Retirement
Summary
he general aim of the ‘Be a Winner In Sport and Employment before and after athletic Retirement’ (B-WISER) project is to provide EU Member States with empirical data, conceptualisations, tools and evidence-based practices relevant to, and enabling them to create the optimal environment to enhance (former) elite athletes’ employability and employment. The partnership will bring together 13 partners with expertise in research on dual careers and with expertise in establishing/providing dual career pathways to (former) elite athletes, together with 14 experts from the domain of sport, career support provision, employment and project management. More specifically, the B-WISER project will identify, use methods to develop, and formulate recommendations and best practices on i) the perceptions, roles, contributions, and interactions of five stakeholders; ii) the competences required and developed by elite and former elite athletes; and iii) the added-value for the world of sport, employers and governmental agencies and policy-makers with regard to (former) elite athletes’ employability and employment during three consecutive career stages (i.e. the dual career ‘elite sport and employment’ pathway, the transition after athletic retirement into the post-athletic career, and a new vocational career after retiring from elite sport). Taking into account the general and specific aims of the project, and the fact that all participating EU Member States are represented by a centre of research excellence, a centre of elite sport, and a career support provider, the B-WISER project will contribute directly to the promotion and support of good governance in enhancing the employability and employment of elite and former elite athletes in three policy domains (i.e., sport, employment, education and training) and during three specific career stages at the level of the European Union, in each of the participating EU Member States.
