Author: duponam
For the first time, a project concerning dual-career athletes has been initiated in the Republic of Kosovo. The project, titled “Dual-career athletes in the Republic of Kosovo and their motivation towards sport and education” is under the leadership of Dr. Sc. Masar Gjaka, 2019 Bengt Nybelius Scholarship winner, who holds the position of Dean at the Faculty of Sports Science and Movement at the University for Business and Technology in Pristina. Thanks to the outstanding collaboration with researchers and experts from five different countries within the European Union, during the period of 2018-2019 Dr. Gjaka cooperated as a researcher for the co-construction of the online educational programme for parents of dual career athletes of the ERASMUS+Sport EMPATIA project (https://edu.empatiasport.eu/eng/).
The “Dual-career athletes in the Republic of Kosovo and their motivation towards sport and education” project holds significant pertinence in its capacity to provide substantial support to dual-career athletes in the future, especially the Republic of Kosovo. The acquisition of knowledge, unique experience, establishment of a network, and comprehension of the significance of dual-career support have collectively instigated the inception of this mission.
The successful realization of this project owed its feasibility to the endorsement of the Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sports. The Ministry recognized the project as important and aligned with their goals. It is important to note that this project serves as an initial step toward the accomplishment of more extensive initiatives on national, regional, and even international scales. It’s notable that the execution of this project stems from the close cooperation with the European Athlete Students organization, which has made invaluable contributions to the execution and the achievement of outcomes of the ongoing “Dual-career athletes in the Republic of Kosovo and their motivation towards sport and education” project. In particular, dr. Gjaka (UBT) and dr. Elena Conde (UCAM) are acting as Members of the EAS Scientific Committee, chaired by Prof. Antonio Tessitore (UNIMED) and supervised by the ExCom Member Prof. Antonio Figueiredo (Coimbra University).
Dr. Gjaka will have further opportunities to establish Dual Career cooperation during his Fulbright Scholarship visit at the Department of Applied Physiology, Health, and Clinical Sciences of the University of North Carolina Charlotte (USA).
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EAS wishes all the Bengt Nybelius Scholarship Winners to be inspired for advancing the European Dual Career and is looking forward to meet the 2023 winner on October 2-4 during the Annual Conference in Gaeta https://sites.google.com/unicas.it/easconference2023/home.
Hosted by the Foundacion ONCE, on June 27, 2023 Laura Capranica (President), Mojca Doupona (Treasurer) and Antonio Sanchez-Pato (Board Member) attended the event on dual career of Paralympic athletes, during which issues on their challenges and opportunities of a Dual Career and the experiences in combining high competition and university paths have been addressed.
Moderated by Fernando Riaño (World Paralympic triathlete and Director of Sustainability/ESG and Institutional Relations at Grupo Social ONCE), during the first session Laura Capranica (EAS), Juan Alfonso García Roca (UCAM) and Luis Leardy and María Delgado (Members of the International Paralympic Committee and Spanish representatives) addressed the challenges and opportunities of a Dual Career of para-athletes.
With her personal experience, María Delgado moderate the second session dedicated to High Competition Athletes and the University. With her personal experience, María Delgado (Paralympic Committee) moderate the second session dedicated to High Competition Athletes and the University with the University Paralympic Carla Casals (Paralympic trainer program FONCE) and Ignacio Arribas (Paralympic Committee)-
During the final remarks, Mrs. Dª Isabel Martínez Lozano, Director of Programmes with Universities and Promotion of Young Talent (FONCE), reminded the audience that since 1938 ONCE has laid the foundation for a system of specialized social services for individuals with disabilities to overcome the obstacles to develop socially, professionally and personally. With the Para-Limits project, ONCE included dual career of athletes with disability, ensuring the sustainab ility of this project.
Following the event, the Para-Limits Team discussed the final steps of the project including the final report and envisioned future collaboration in this area. The Para-Limits – Dual Career of Student-Athletes with Disabilities as a Tool for Social Inclusion project (EPLUS 400622213) will be present at the 2023 EAS Conference in Gaeta, Italy next October 2-4, 2023.
Para-Limits project is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
Croatian Academic Sports Federation (CASF/HASS), with the support of the European University Sports Association (EUSA), academic and other partners, hosted the first “4 Healthy Academic Society” conference in Poreč, Croatia on June 8 -9, 2023.
The conference was opened with the welcoming words of the CASF President and EUSA 1st Vice-President Mr Haris Pavletic and EUSA President, Mr Adam Roczek.
The conference showcased a significant step towards creating a healthier and more active academic environment that will benefit the physical and mental health of students, academics, and professionals. It was the place where multiple scientific presentations and papers were presented, knowledge shared, important data showcased, and networks strenghtened. This conference emphasized the importance of physical exercises and health, while addressing a broad range of topics related also to dual career.
Prof. Mojca Doupona (EAS ex-com member) was a keynote speaker. She gave presentation entitled “From EU guidelines on dual career to useful practical tools for student athletes”, emphasizing important best practice examples, projects related to the topic of dual career(i.e. Brava DC, TALENT, Compath, Paralimits), as well as sharing knowledgeable examples of her expertise, extensive research involvement, and strategic leadership experience.
On the topic of Dual career and academic sport, the attendees had the chance to hear and see study and research data of athletes’ Croatian Career Centre, analysis of the current situation and trends in competitive and recreative university sport, the importance of information in the system of academic sports, as well as new strategies to improve employment opportunities and sports event quality in Europe.
In being a platform for intergovernmental co-operation between its Member States (i.e., Governing Board) and sports actors (i.e., Consultative Committee), the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS) of the Council of Europe aims to contribute to ensure good governance, ethical and inclusive sport. On June 7-8, 2023 in Strasbourg (France), President Laura Capranica had the opportunity to participate in the annual meeting of the Consultative Committee, to present the past and present EAS activities in relation to the aims and recommendations of the revised European Sport Charter (https://www.coe.int/en/web/sport/revision-esc/), to elect the President and a new Member of the Consultative Committee Bureau, and to participate in the discussion during the meetings of the EPAS Governing Board.
Regarding the revised European Sport Charter, the aims of the recently finalized (AMID, DONA, EdMedia, ELCAMP, EMPATIA, More Than Gold, Sport Opens Schools, and STARTING11) and ongoing (BRAVA-DC, COMPATH, Para-Limits, Talent, Sports as Value) projects co-funded by the European Union have been illustrated. Furthermore, the EAS and EPAS role in the ongoing European COST Action Determinants of Physical Activity in Settings (DE-PASS, CA19101) has been highlighted.
To integrate the Bureau of the Consultative Committee elected last year (Vice Chair: Mogens Kirkeby – International Sport and Culture Association – ISCA; Members: Pauline Johanet – Peace and Sport; Janez Sodrznik – The Association For International Sport for All – TAFISA; Baiba Veisa – European Fair Play Movement – EFPM), and to the Gender Equality Rapporteur (Marie Dennington – European Non-Governmental Sports Organisation – ENGSO), Charlotte Girard Fabre (International Federation for Sports Officials – IFSO) and Andrej Pisl (European University Sports Association – EUSA) have been elected for an one-year mandate as Chair and new Member, respectively. Also the Governing Board elected its new Bureau, confirming Chair Alexandre Husting (Luxembourg) and Vice-Chair Andrea Carletti (Italy), and Members Solène Charuau (France), Benthe Tanghe (Netherlands), Andrew Decelis (Malta), Ioanna Paraskevopoulou (Cyprus) and Diana De Aguiar Santos (Portugal).
During the joint sessions, the past and upcoming EPAS events have been presented. Issues on the promotion of sport integrity have been discussed, including the draft Declaration on Sport Integrity and the role of the International Network of Magistrates and Prosecutors Responsible for Sports (MARS) to be presented to the Committee of Ministers.
The day before the meetings, EPAS also organized a hybrid training session on gender equality, with dr. Jane Dennehy specifically addressing unconscious bias in women’s sport and media.
More information is available at https://www.coe.int/en/web/sport/epas/.
Hosted by the Instituto Politécnico de Viseu and coordinated by Fundacion Universitaria San Antonio – UCAM, on May 30, 2023, the Para-Limits Team gathered in Viseu, Portugal to examine the status of reports after completion of the IO4 pilot course, with a focus on the presentation of the Executive Report. As well, was presented the pilot course feedback and respective areas for improvement.
Para-Limits – Dual Career of Student-Athletes with Disabilities as a Tool for Social Inclusion project (EPLUS 400622213) is aimed at enabling high-level sportsmen and women with some kind of disability to successfully complete their sports and university careers without undermining one over the other. The name Para-Limits refers to those high-level athletes, Paralympics included, who seek to break down barriers and display their talent without limits.
During the meeting was discuss the format of the publication of the outputs of the project getting the idea that the most viable option is to publish the course modules in Handbook format in order to fulfil the IO5 of the project.
Financial aspects were mentioned by the coordinator institution and considering the project is coming to an end, final announcements were presented to keep all the procedures suitable with the agency requirements.
Finally, it was informed that the final transnational meeting of the project will take place on June 27th, 2023, at the headquarters of the ONCE Foundation in Madrid, Spain.
The EAS was represented by Antonio Figueiredo and Antonio Pato (physically) and Laura Capranica (remotely).
Para-Limits project is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
On June 1st, 2023, more than 80 participants, including university students from Niš (Serbia) attended online the tenth EAS Cafè “Dual career as European sports diplomacy”, moderated by Prof. Antonio Sanchez-Pato, Director of the Sports Science Area at the Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR, Spain) and member of the EAS Executive Committee.
Prof. Sanchez-Pato introduced the theme of the Cafè by offering the definitions of sport diplomacy and examples of this powerful tool to improve the dialogue, relations, and cultural exchanges between communities, to defuse tensions and to build bridges between countries. He also highlighted the role of education of sportspersons whose experiences of a globalized sport environment could help them developing skills useful in the diplomatic arena. Finally, he emphasized the potential of e-learning to support dual career worldwide, especially in considering that some European universities historically have a relevant cultural exchange in other continents, such as Latin America.
The first speaker, Prof. Felipe Rodrigues Da Costa, Assistant Professor at the Physical Education Faculty of the Brasilia University (FEF/UnB) and Coordinator of the Post-graduate Program in Physical Education, summarized the development of dual career in Latin America, starting from his post-doc experience at the University of Coimbra and his cooperation with Prof. Antonio Figueiredo, Member of the EAS Excecutive Committee. He illustrated not only his personal dedication to the development of dual career research in Latin America that resulted in a tremendous increase of scientific contributions during the past few years, but also the capitalization of the good practice of EAS for establishing a dual career Ibero-American network, which resulted in the organization of international seminars and the participation of Brazilian delegates to the EAS conference.
The second speaker, Prof. Karim Chamari, Head of Aspetar Injury and Illness Prevention Program (ASPREV) at Aspetar, Doha (Qatar) presented his difficulties in combining his academic and sport careers as a Tunisian Olympic windsurfer at the Barcelona Games in 1992. Whilst in Tunisia he struggled to have dual career arrangements at academic level, as a PhD student at the University of Montpellier (France) he engaged in personal negotiations with his PhD tutor to have a 4-month break from his research studies to prepare for the Olympic Games. Suffering a sudden end of his sport career due to an unexpected severe pathology, Prof. Chamari benefited from his bio-medical studies to recover his condition. Despite a lack of institutional dual career support, Prof. Chamari’s determination made him a well-prepared coach of professional soccer players and one of the most rewarded outstanding scholars.
In summarizing the general discussion, Prof. Sanchez-Pato underlined the main role of dual career in establishing understanding between cultures, scientific research, and cooperation between organizations. He also urged young researcher to send their application to the Bengt Nybelius Scholarship before July 1, 2023, and anticipated that an EAS survey will be mailed to its internal and external stakeholders to collect their opinions regarding the past and future EAS activities. Before closing the Tenth EAS Cafè, the participants were informed that the next EAS Cafè will be organized in fall, after the Annual Conference to be held in Gaeta next October 2-4, 2023.
Hosted by the Fundacion Universitaria San Antonio – UCAM and coordinated by Collective Innovation AS, on May 29-30, 2023, the COMPATH Team gathered in Murcia, Spain to examine the preliminary findings of a desk analysis of academic curricula encompassing sports-oriented technology and 21st century skills, business world, entrepreneurship and different thinking and literacy methods, and to envisage further progression of the project.
The COMPATH project (101050955) supports the educational, professional, and personal development of young athletes-students (18-25 yrs) through a ‘‘Competence Hub on Sport Innovation’’, thereby contributing to promote quality and new jobs and to driving innovation. Using the potential of sport, COMPATH will contribute to smart growth and employment through the re-usable, transferable and up-scalable results (the content – educational resources and tools; and space – platform) offered to young athletes-students and facilitators responsible for their education and guidance.
In the next months, two surveys will be administered to European academic experts and student-sportspersons aged between 18 to 25 years, respectively. Furthermore, national semi-structured interviews with experts in dual career, sports technology, and/or pedagogy will be envisaged.
Further information will be shared during the next EAS Annual Conference to be held in Gaeta, Italy, next October 2-4, 2023
COMPATH project is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
On May 11-12, 2023 the Talent Team gathered in Palermo, Italy to discuss the outcomes of the desk analysis and best practices report from the participating countries, to participate in the Show your talent event at Regina Margherita high school, to foresee the advancement of the project for the identification of the standards for talented.
TALENT project (101090147) is focused on the integration of youth talents in their school and sports environments through a program that is pre-operational with respect to an actual dual-career programme. With this aim, the “Show your talent!” Event was organized at the Regina Margherita high school in Palermo, with talented students presenting dance, drama, language, music, painting, and sport (taek-won-do) performances. Furthermore, Italian track and field coaches, athletes, teachers, and scholars exchanged their opinions on the difficulty to define the characteristics of a specific talent, to delineate the boundaries and signs for detecting a given talent, and to adopt the proper measures to help youth to expressing their talent.
In the next months, national focus groups will be organized in Italy, Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia to provide insights from coaches and teachers on how to identify and support a dual career of talented youth. Then, a workshop with European dual career experts will take place during the next EAS Annual Conference to be held in Gaeta, Italy, next October 2-4, 2023
Tenth EAS Online Cafè
“Dual career as European sports diplomacy”
Zoom Meeting June 1, 2023 (from 12:00 CET)
12:00 Welcome words: Prof. Antonio Sanchez-Pato
Director of the Department of Sports Sciences. Faculty of Health Sciences, International University of La Rioja.
12:10 – Prof. Felipe Rodrigues Da Costa: “Dual Career in Brazil: research, actions, and the (possible) European Experience”.
Prof. Felipe Rodrigues Da Costa is Assistant Professor at the Physical Education Faculty of the Brasilia University (FEF/UnB) and Coordinator of the Post-graduate Program in Physical Education – PPGEF/UnB. He is the Coordinator of the Research Group on Sports Training and Athlete Career (DuCa), President of the Brazilian Association on Dual Career (ABDC), Member of the IberoAmerican Network on Dual Career, and develops research on dual careers at master’s and doctorate levels. Prof. Da Costa has been working with the theme of dual careers since 2010 when he started his Ph.D. at Gama Filho University in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), and participated in the organization of the International Seminar on Dual Careers and other events. He completed a postdoctoral internship at the University of Coimbra, supervised by Professor Dr. Antonio Figueiredo.
12:30 – Prof. Karim Chamari: “Surfing: from the sea’ waves to online research papers’’
Prof. Karim Chamari is Head of Aspetar Injury and Illness Prevention Program (ASPREV) at Aspetar, Doha, Qatar. He is a former elite athlete who participated in the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Game in windsurfing. Doctor in Exercise Physiology and University Full Professor, Prof. Chamari is one of the most active Sport Science researchers. He has published 400+ publications in peer-review journals (H-index 66, Scopus) and more than 20 book chapters, particularly focused on football (soccer) science and medicine and Ramadan fasting. He has also an extensive field experience as fitness coach of professional Tunisian Footballers for more than 10 years. Prof. Chamari has been the leader of the Tunisian Research Laboratory ‘Sport Performance Optimization’ of the National Centre of Medicine and Science in Sport, Tunis, Tunisia for 10 years before joining Qatar in 2013.
12:50 – General discussions and concluding remarks
On May 4-5, 2023, the University of Ljubljana and EUSA organized the second face-to-face transnational project meeting of the European project BRAnd Values Alignment through Dual Career (BRAVA-DC, 622824-EPP-1-2020-1-IE-SPO-SCP). The BRAVA-DC project focuses on the Dual Career opportunities of employee sportspersons, which could be valuable for the sustainability and corporate social responsibility strategies and policies of for-profit companies. In raising the awareness of employment challenges and opportunities for dual career sportspersons could be considered also a beakthrough for other atypical employee, such as artists and performers.
During the 2-day hosted by the Faculty of Sport of the University of Ljubljana the partners discussed the findings regarding the views of relevant dual career factors collected from the views of the employee sportspersons and their employers. In particular, the concept mapping was deemed relevant for the development of a dual career framework at the workplace, and the identification of the most relevant factors possessing theoretical and reasonable agreements should inform the new European DC workplace guidelines.
Two graphic students participated to the meeting offering their visual representation of the BRAVA-DC project and the interaction between the members of the project. This unique contribution allowed the participants to further reflections on how visual illustration could summarize effectively the project aims and its development.
During the EAS Annual Conference to be held in Gaeta on 2-4 October 2023, dual career experts will have the opportunity to validate the content and structure of the new European dual career guidelines at the workplace.
REG. NUMBER: Voluntary Organisation registration VO/1270
PIC NUMBER: 913459865
Email: info@dualcareer.eu