EU Projects
Dear Dual Career Friends and Colleagues,
Indeed, 2020 has been a challenging year affecting our life in many serious ways and obliging all of us to find adjustments to this unexpected crisis. Sport and education have been tremendously pressured, with closed schools and many sports events postponed to the next year. If every crisis brings also an opportunity, EAS decided to focus on the second part of the equation by continuing cooperating with European institutions and experts working in the field of Dual Career.
Whilst the COVID-19 stopped many activities, EAS discovered new ways to grow, connect, and engage its members in the development of a European Dual Career culture. Thanks to the Team of the University of Hamburg, the dual career community participated in the 17th Annual Conference in a virtual modality. Furthermore, since its re-election as a Member of the 2020-2022 Bureau of the Consultative Committee of EPAS – Council of Europe, EAS started cooperating with the International School Sport Federation-ISF (Chair), the European Olympic Committees-EOC (Vice-Chair), the European Network of Sport Education-ENSE, and The Association for International Sport for All-TAFISA.
Our Network participated in several applications to the ERASMUS+ Sport 2020 Call for Collaborative Partnerships on dual career. Three of them have been funded, specifically focusing on brand alignment strategies and corporate social responsibilities policies in Dual Career (BRAVA-DC); self-employment career option for innovative sport-focused entrepreneurship bootcamp (EL-CAMP); and on Dual Career of athletes with disabilities (PARA-LIMITS). Meantime, EAS contributed to the activities of the ongoing projects (AMID, DONA, EdMedia, EMPATIA, More than Gold, SOS, and STARTING 11), mainly through online meetings as a new way to connect. Despite EdMedia, EMPATIA, More than Gold, and SOS were expected to be finalized by December 31, 2020, due to the pandemic their final activities have been postponed to 2021.
As the European Dual Career knowledge-hub, EAS also contributed to the dissemination of knowledge through scientific publications in peer-review journals. Specifically, the activities of the Network have been published on the special issue on Dual Career of the Cultura, Ciencia y Deporte journal, whereas the outcomes of a systematic literature review and focus groups on parenting Dual Career athletes have been published in the Psychology of Sport and Exercise and PlosOne journals, respectively.
To provide further opportunities for continuing the discussion on Dual Career issues, the Network started the new adventure of virtual cafes with experts sharing their stories and visions. This novel experience dedicated to the EAS members was successfully held at the end of November. Surely, it will be consolidated in 2021 with a bimonthly cadence. I would like to invite you to reach out with any topic, thoughts, ideas, or news that help us promote Dual Career.
Whilst the COVID-19 continues to bring sickness and many of us are still isolated, we foresee a new recovered life in 2021 and look forward to meeting you in person next September during the 18th EAS Annual Conference to be organized in Lisbon during the Lisboa 2021-Capital of Sport by ICSTE-Istituto Universitario de Lisboa.
We take this opportunity to remind you to renew your 2021 EAS membership through the linkhttp://www.dualcareer.eu/membership/. We also encourage you to continue being proactive in the dissemination of EAS at local, national and international levels. Together, we will make the European Dual Career culture progress!
The Executive Board of EAS wishes you and your family a return to a life full of peace and happiness in 2021.
EU funded ERASMUS+ SPORT Collaborative Partnerships starting in 2021
On October 20, 2020, EACEA published the results of the selected proposals for ERASMUS+ SPORT to be started on January 1, 2021. Under the EC priority on sports “Promote education in and through sport with special focus on skills development, as well support the implementation of the EU Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes” EAS is partner of three Collaborative Partnerships:
BRAVA-DC: Brand Value Alignment through Dual Career, Coordinated by University of Limerick (Ireland) in cooperation with Aarhus Kommune (Denmark), European Platform for Sports and Innovation (Belgium), EUSA Institite (Slovenia), Faculty of Sport and Physical Education, University of Nis (Serbia), Fondazione Human Age (Italy), Università diegli Studi Roma Tre (Italy), Univerza V Ljubljani (Slovenia), and EAS (Malta). The primary focus of BRAVA-DC is on enhancing the European workplace environment so the circumstances and challenges of dual career athletes and coaches can more effectively be accommodated. The BRAVA-DC project aims are: 1) to structure an evidence and eminence knowledge base on dual career for employee-athletes and 2) to define and enable European guidelines which support DC in the workplace and which facilitate appropriate brand alignment strategies and CSR policies which value DC. Accordingly, the overarching aim of the BRAVA-DC project is to implement the EU Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes.
EL CAMP: A Self-employment Career Option for Elite Athletes: Innovative Sport-focused Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, coordinated by Collective Innovation AS (Norway) in cooperation with European Paralympic Committee (Austria), Fundacion Universitaria San Antonio (Spain), Hogskolen I Molde (Norway), Lietuvos Sporto Universitetas (Lithuania), Olimpijski Komite Slovenije Zdruzenje Sportnih Zvez (Slovenia). The overall objectives of ELCAMP are to support the implementation of the EU Guidelines Dual Careers of Athletes through the development of a sports-focused entrepreneurship program and to contribute to innovative approaches to sports-focused entrepreneurship through an entrepreneurship bootcamp curriculum, training modules, toolkits and learning, mentoring and networking platform in line with talented, elite and retired athletes needs and expectations.
PARA-LIMITS: Dual Career of Student- Athletes with Disabilities as a Tool for Social Inclusion, coordinated by the Fundacion Universitaria San Antonio (Spain) in cooperation with Collective Innovation AS (Norway), European Paralympic Committee (Austria), Fundacion Once Para la Cooperacione Inclusion Social de Personas (Spain), Instituto Politecnico de Viseu (Portugal), Università degli Studi di Roma Foro Italico (Italy), Universitatea Nationala De Educatie Fizica Si Sport Din Bucuresti (Romania), University of Limerick (Ireland) and EAS (Malta). The main objectives are: to detect the needs and barriers athletes-students with disabilities have in combining their sports and university commitments; to adapt the Dual Career model to elite athletes with disabilities for promoting their social integration and for supporting their transition to the labor market at the end of their sports careers; to create an innovative course for university staff to serve as sports mentors for athletes-students with disabilities.
More information on the selected ERASMUS+ SPORT 2020 proposals iS available at https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/erasmus-plus/selection-results/erasmus-sport-2020_en
The ERASMUS + funded project STARTING11 reaches the next project phase. The meeting started with a review about the last months during which the upcoming testing phase was planned, including the selection of the external stakeholders, the assignment of tools to the testing partners and above all, the development of the guidelines for the upcoming testing phase.
In the main part all project partners were informed about the procedure for the upcoming testing phase. ADH who is responsible for the testing phase planned the next months of testing. Martin Santelmann, Dr. Christoph Fischer and Joerg Foerster, will also monitor the process with the goal of receiving high quality feedback from all testing partners for a good refinement on the very first European Dual Career Toolkit in 2021.
Aiming that each of the involved project partners …
- Amsterdam University of Applied Science (AUAS – Netherlands)
- Athletes as Students Network (EAS – Malta)
- German University Sport Federation (adh – Germany)
- Sportlycee Luxembourg (SplL – Luxembourg)
- Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (TASS – England)
…. will test three tools from the different areas “Manage”, “Train” and “Counsel” in its own operation, supervise at least one external and two internal stakheolders from their own country.
Indeed, 2020 required all of us to adopt measures to prevent and to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. While physical distance is needed, we will keep staying connected. Thus, for the first time, the EAS General Assembly and Conference are now transformed into a virtual event hosted by the University of Hamburg (Germany).
To meet the dual-career excellence attendees, expect, the online EAS program includes keynote speakers and sessions with interactive Q&A sessions and two workshops.
At the heart of our online program is the cutting-edge information in the European achievements and future activities, and the experiences of EU-funded projects on dual career. Thus, the program will provide various views and approaches that will encourage key dual career actions, policies, and research contributing to the development of the European dual career discourse.
Your online EAS Conference pass will give you exclusive access to:
- Annual General Assembly
- All keynote presentations, sessions, and workshops
- Post-Conference access to presentations
Therefore, the 2020 EAS conference will remain the privileged occasion for the interchange of ideas and stay current in the European dual career field and networking!
We are here for the benefit of athletes as students, and we look forward to seeing you online on September 17, 2020.
Sincerely,
Laura Capranica, President
On July 1, 2020, the EMPATIA Team (Coordinator: University of Ljubljana; Partners: EUSA Institute, Ginásio Clube Figueirense, INSEP, CONI, Sport Ireland Institute, University of Coimbra, University of Limerick, University of Rome Foro Italico, and EAS) participated to a virtual meeting aimed to refine the education material of the online programme for parents of student-athletes, which has been developed on thorough evidence- (Tessitore et al., under revision), the eminence-based knowledge collected from 115 parents of dual career athletes (Giaka et al., under revision), and a concept mapping procedure involving 489 parents from six Member States (e.g., France, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Portugal, and Slovenia) to develop a dual career parenting education framework.
In the next months, the EMPATIA Team is going to collect the parents’ feedback on the usefulness of the educational programme before its official launch at the end of the project.
On June 15 and 16 the regular project meeting of the project “More than gold” was organized. It was initially planned to be held in Coimbra, Portugal, but due to the current Pandemic situation and travel restrictions, it was decided to organize the meeting virtually.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the process of finalizing both intellectual results, including ideas for guidelines design and other necessary improvements.
During the meeting, the results of the university survey were presented – the opinion of the university representatives on the possibility to adapt the guidelines in their organization. The results of a survey on feedbacks from COVID were also presented – how the Pandemic has affected the daily life of athletes’ dual sports careers – training and studying processes.
The main aim of the project “More than gold” is to create dual career guidelines for higher education institutions (HEI) and strengthen dual career policies in all EU countries, especially in the countries, where dual career policy is at an early stage.
“More than gold” is going to collect the best practices about different activities for students – athletes, which can help youngest students (for instance career centre services, psychologist services, mentoring program for young students etc.) to start studies.
On June 8-10, 2020 the Centres de Ressources, d’Expertise et de Performance Sportives – CREPS Toulouse hosted the Partners of Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (coordinator), ADH, EAS, Sportlycée Luxembourg, TASS, and TW1N for the virtual meeting of the Starting11 project (60313-EPP-1-2018-1-NL-SPO-SCP).
To stimulate national, regional and local dual career delivery in the EU, Starting 11 aims to create the very first European Dual Career Toolkit for service providers.
During the three days, the Partners engaged in the refinement of tools in 4 areas of dual career service:
“Management”, which focuses on promoting the political, theoretical and infrastructural know-how to implement and administrate dual career services;
“Framework”, which targets programmes at a school and higher education level to contribute to conditions in which dual careers can successfully be realized;
“Dual career counselling”, which aims at inter-personal counselling services to foster the coping, decision-making and planning ability of an athlete within times of fundamental change and transition; and
“Communication”, which caters to the identification of efficient communication towards the most relevant dual career stakeholders.
The meeting ended with a virtual tour of Toulouse!
More information on Starting 11 is available at www.starting11.eu
On Friday, June 5th, 2020, the weekly virtual coffee meeting of the UNISPORT Italia presented a the gender-specific approach to dual career “E-learning and training: The recipe for female youth athletes of the future”.
President Paolo Bouquet introduced the speakers Raffaella Masciadri (President of the Athletes’ Committee of the Italian Olympic Committee), Alessandra Ortenzi (Sport Web Journalist, Digital PR and Sport Strategist) and Federica Stradi (Scuola di Pallavolo Anderlini, Partner of the DONA project), who presented their unique and innovative efforts to address several essential development stages and major dual career transitions of female athletes.
The 42 participants were informed on the development of an e-learning education programme tailored for female athletes as well as the aims and progression of the DONA project focused on the holistic development of youth female volleyball players. During the general discussion, the opportunity to connect with other related projects to enhance the effective development of a dual career in Italy was envisaged. In particular, the expected outcomes of the Starting 11 (the European toolkit for dual career service providers) and the EMPATIA (the online educational programme for parents of dual career athletes) projects were particularly appreciated.
As a Member of EAS, the proactive dual career attitude of UNISPORT-Italia represents a valuable good practice to advance the European sports culture.
REG. NUMBER: Voluntary Organisation registration VO/1270
PIC NUMBER: 913459865
Email: info@dualcareer.eu