EU Projects
The second transnational meeting of the European Para-Limits project (https://paralimits.eu) was held at the Foro Italico University in Rome on December 16, 2021. During the meeting, the progress of the collection of the eminence-base knowledge collected through an international survey was presented and further activities were envisioned. The partners also agreed on the deadlines for the next tasks and on the steps to present the findings. In particular, it was envisioned to disseminate the project and the outcomes of its activities at the 2022 Annual EAS Conference to be held at the Catholic University of Murcia (UCAM) in Cartagena, Spain. On 30-31 May and 1 June, 2022, the next transnational meeting will be held at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, during the first months of the project the partners recognized their enthusiastic commitment in accomplishing the preliminary phases of Para-Limits and they were very satisfied by the great work carried out.
On December 2, 2021, the Associació Esportiva Carles Vallbona (AECV, coordinator) hosted the final event of the European Collaborative Partnership “Dual Career for Women Athletes” (DONA), which aimed to support dual career of talented female athletes in cooperation with Phoenix Sport Club (PSC), Scuola di Pallavolo Anderlini Soc. Coop. Sociale SD (SPA), Istres Provence Volley (IPV), De SportMaatschappij Foundation (DSM), University of Ljubljana (UL), and the European Athlete as Student (EAS) network (EAS). Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, DONA succeeded in offering a pilot programme on female athletes’ Dual Career competences (i.e., monitoring and evaluation toolkit) at the level of volleyball clubs.
Joan Carles Marín, project coordinator, opened the face-to-face conference and welcomed 200 participants.
Leonard Zammit (Phoenix Sport Club) illustrated the aims, development, and outcomes of the project. In particular, she stressed the DONA methodology for successfully approaching and enhancing female athletes’ Dual Careers, which encompassed quantitative and qualitative analyses.
Federica Stradi (Scuola di Pallavolo Anderlini Soc. Coop. Sociale SD) presented five steps for implementing Dual Career at a volleyball club level, encompassing Coordinator and Dual Career Club Management Team, Philosophy, Communication, Implementation and Monitoring. In considering that the COVID pandemic affected the time management, goal setting and identity of athletes, Noemí Bonet (psychologist of AECV) and Joan Carles Marín (President of AECV) presented the impact of the DONA project and offered ideas for the future.
Moderated by TV3 journalist Jordi Sanuy, Ona Carbonell (synchronized swimming Olympic medalist), Aina Berbel (international player at CV Sant Cugat), Maribel Zamora (President of the Catalan Volleyball Federation), Anna González (mother of a volleyball player) and Gloria Montoy (education inspector) discussed in round table Dual Career of female athletes.
Partners of the project Education Model for Parents of Athletes in Academics (EMPATIA) met on October 29 in person in Rome, with some partners attending also online, reviewing the main project outcomes and setting the final tasks before the project officially concludes the end of November.
EMPATIA offers an educational platform for parents and guardians of athletes in education. Useful resource materials are offered within the online education modules in multiple languages and are available through the official website of the project.
Apart of the resources also three academic research papers have been published:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2020.101833
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243354
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257719
The project has been presented and disseminated by project partners across Europe, and also beyond.
At the final meeting all the work packages have been presented and analysed, each partner presented their activities.
The EMPATIA project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, led by the University of Ljubljana. The consortium is composed of 10 partners, representing universities, institutes and sports bodies from four countries and two European networks,
For more information, please see www.empatiasport.eu
On September 29, 2021, the University of Limerick – Ireland, coordinator of the ERASMUS+ Collaborative Partnership “BRAnd Values Align
ment through Dual Career (BRAVA-DC)” (622824-EPP-1-2020-1-IE-SPO-SCP), organized online the second project meeting with the partner’s University of Rome3 – Italy, University of Ljubljana – Slovenia, European Platform for Sport Innovation (EPSI) – Belgium, Elite Sport Academy Aarhus (ESAA) – Denmark, Human Age Institute Foundation (FHAI) – Italy, University of Niš – Serbia, European University Sports Association Institute (EUSA) – Slovenia, and the European Athlete as Student Network – Malta).
The project progression was discussed, including the achievements, future actions, and dissemination activities. In particular, the primary focus of BRAVA-DC is on the enhancement of a dual career of employee-athletes and employee coaches in business-oriented companies.
To define a solid basis for supporting dual career in the workplace and facilitate appropriate brand alignment strategies and Corporate Social Responsibility policies, the scientific literature was analysed. In particular, a conceptual manuscript on dual career elements to be aligned to successfully manage sustainable strategies and practices of corporate brands has been awarded the 2020-2021 Bengt Nybelius Scholarship and will be presented at the 2021 FISU World Conference on December 13-14, 2021.
A further collection of information on the athletes’ and coaches’ needs and barriers of dual career at the workplace was planned. This collected evidence- and eminence-based information will be used to develop a European framework and guidelines.
After more than 2.5 years of implementation, the Erasmus + Sport-funded project EdMedia ends this September, with the main goal of proactively changing the attitude towards an athletes’ dual career by deliberately shaping a positive image and encouraging sports organizations to pursue the implementation of the EU Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes.
Partners from different EU countries have contributed to this goal: Lithuanian Sports University, Lithuania (LSU), University of Rome Foro Italico, Italy (UNIROMA), European University Sports Association, Slovenia (EUSA), Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania (UAIC), University of Valencia, Spain (UV), German Sport University Cologne, Germany (GSU), University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (UL), European Athlete as Student (EAS) Network.
A detailed analysis was carried out during the project to assess the extent to which the EU Guidelines for the Dual Career of Athletes are being implemented in the participating countries, with particular emphasis on 7 of the 36 recommendations related to a systematic approach to dual careers. The results of the project are available on the project coordinator’s (Lithuanian Sports University) website: https://www.lsu.lt/en/project-edmedia/.
During the project, implementation was developed an online platform where athletes, coaches, sport journalists and other stakeholders can find information on what a dual career is for athletes, why it is important and how to use social media to raise awareness of a dual career beyond athletes, but also among the general public, which is shared by athletes from different countries. It is important to mention that the focus was not so much on presenting the importance of the dual career itself, but also on creating a video-based learning platform for athletes seeking a dual career where they can find tips on how to present themselves on social media.
So we invite athletes to actively use the online platform developed during the project to create their own story with EdMedia ….
On June 24, 2021, the Catholic University of San Antonio Murcia UCAM – Spain, coordinator of the ERASMUS+ Collaborative Partnership “Dual Career of Student-Athletes with Disabilities as a Tool for Social Inclusion – PARA-LIMITS” (622213-EPP-1-2020-1-ES-SPO-SCP), organized online the second project meeting with the partner’s University of Rome Foro Italico – Italy, the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu – Portugal, the National Physical Education University of Bucharest – Romania, the University of Limerick – Ireland, the Collective Innovation – Norway, the European Paralympic Committee and the European Athlete as Student Network – Malta).
First, the findings on the state of the art of dual career of student-athletes with disabilities were analysed. Then, a 
further collection of information on the obstacles, needs and barriers of this special population in relation to their sports and academic career was planned. In particular, a multi-lingual online survey and national focus groups will be organized during the fall. The collected evidence- and eminence-based information will be used to develop a guide to boost the dual career among athletes with disabilities, and to create an innovative course for the training of university staff as sports mentors specialized in student-athletes with disabilities. (more…)
Dual Career of Student- AthLetes with disabilities as a tool for Social Inclusion: The PARA-LIMITS project (PCS-OPS-SE-1-0202-1-PPE-312226)
The EU-funded Collaborative Partnership PARA-LIMITS addresses the promotion of dual career of disabled athletes and their social inclusion opportunities, which is a Dual Career priority rarely addressed. To provide a systematic solution for the challenges of conciliating sporting career and university studies of disabled athletes, a solid basis will be scientific research and information collected on dual career for athletes with disabilities.
On June 16 the University of Rome “Foro Italico” hosted a PARA-LIMITS webinar on the state of art of the barriers, difficulties and organisation that athletes with disabilities face in undertaking their Dual Career in five Member States (Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain).
The video of the event is available at: https://youtu.be/ADOeHqHnin4
Successful project meeting to develop the European Dual Career Toolkit to promote dual careers in top-class sport in “virtual” Hamburg.
On April 21 and 22, 2021 the fifth of a total of six meetings of the partner institutions Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS), Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (TASS), CREPS Toulouse, Sportlycée Luxembourg (SL), European Athlete as Student (EAS) and the adh (German University Sport Federation), which are strongly supported by TW1N (Project management and consultancy) took place.
The adh as the host, represented by CEO Jörg Förster and project researcher Martin Santelmann, organized and moderated the two-day meeting with the active participation of the Hamburg University Sports Team, which ensured that the breaks were active.
In addition to the presentation and discussion of the dissemination strategy for 2021, the focus was primarily on the presentation and discussion of the results from the previous three-month test phase. This was planned, coordinated and evaluated by the adh in a leading role. 15 tools developed in the areas of “Manage”, “Train” and “Counsel” were checked for their feasibility and applicability by external European stakeholders as well as internal project partners. On the basis of the feedback obtained, the final refinement of the instruments on the European Dual Career Toolkit has now begun. It is already clear that all those involved in the dual career can look forward to the introduction of the toolkit at the end of this year.
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That project unites leading European institutions in dual career research and practice, to create the very first European Dual Career Toolkit. The lead is taken by the Amsterdam University of Applied Science, Partners are:
– Athletes as Students Network (EAS – Malta)
– Creps Toulouse (CREPS – France)
– German University Sport Federation (adh – Germany)
– Sportlycee Luxembourg (SplL – Luxembourg)
– Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (TASS – England)
– TW1N (Project management and consultancy)
Aim of the project is to develop tailored tools to the specific demand of dual career service providers in the EU member states. Using an integrated approach, STARTING 11 empowers key actors in sport, education and the labour market to provide high quality services to athletes in all stages of their sporting career, reaching from school level to the stage of retirement from sport.
EAS is represented in that project by Prof. Laura Capranica (Foro Italico) and Ole Keldorf (Eliteidraet Scole Aarhus – ESAA). EAS Secretary General, Joerg Foerster, is representing EAS member adh within that project.
Further information on the EU project is available at https://starting11.eu/.
PIC:Matthias Hangst/SportstipendiumMRN
The Partners of the Erasmus+ funded project ELCAMP (A Self-employment Career Option for Elite Athletes: Innovative Sport-focused Entrepreneurship Bootcamp) met virtually for a kick-off meeting in March. EAS was represented by dr. Mojca Doupona and dr. Tibor Kozsla.
The ELCAMP project focus to strengthen the skills and competencies of elite and Paralympic athletes on sport-focused entrepreneurship with innovative methods and connecting athletes among themselves and with other people interested in entrepreneurship. The project objectives directly address the target group of EAS. EAS will be actively involved in the pilot implementation phase of the project. EAS will also lead to the dissemination of project outputs both at the athlete’s level and at the level of sports organizations in Europe.
EL CAMP partners are 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).
On April 6 the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace is celebrated having a white card as a symbol to emphasize the positive values of sport, which unify individuals regardless of gender, ethnic, social or religious differences.
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, the SOS project celebrates the Sports Schools for Development and Peace event (@peaceandsport, @SportOpensSchool, #WhiteCard, #April6, #OnlyTogether) with a video involving students from the Hungarian (Kolcsey Ferenc Gimnazium, Budapest), Italian (IIS Newton Pertini, Camposampietro), Portuguese (Externato Cooperativo da Benedita), and Romanian (Liceum cum Program Sportiv, Bacau) Partner high schools.
REG. NUMBER: Voluntary Organisation registration VO/1270
PIC NUMBER: 913459865
Email: info@dualcareer.eu