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On November 23, 2021 The European Parliament approved its resolution on EU sports policy: Assessment and possible ways forward (2021/2058(INI)) – Link
Dual career was maintained in the EU priorities and extended to all the sport staff (coaches, referees, sport managers) as reported I the following points:
- Calls for the EU guidelines on dual careers of athletes to be implemented and promoted in each Member State, and extended to all sport staff engaged in structured sport and for specific retraining initiatives;
- Reiterates its call on the Commission, the Member States, sports federations and clubs to promote dual-career opportunities for athletes and calls on the Commission to consider including cross-border mobility of athletes in the next Erasmus+ programme;
- Reiterates the need to develop a strategy for supporting former athletes to ensure they have adequate access to jobs, skilling or reskilling.
Furthermore, the 2022 annual work programme – “Erasmus+”: the Union Programme for 
Education, Training, Youth and Sport has been published (https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/document/2022-annual-work-programme-erasmus-the-union-programme-for-education-training-youth-and-sport). In particular, it will also promote and support good governance in sport and dual careers of athletes and voluntary activities in sport, together with social inclusion, including of refugees and migrants. The implementation of the Erasmus+ sport actions will continue to assist sporting organisations and clubs to recover from the COVID-19 crisis. Continuity will be ensured in the support of the European Week of Sport and the implementation of EU guidelines (EU Physical Activity Guidelines and EU Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes).
Important deadlines:
Small-scale partnerships in the field of sport: 23 March
Cooperation partnerships in the field of sport: 23 March
Non-for-profit European Sport Events: 23 March
Capacity building in the field of Sport: 7 April
EAS will support new applications for the further development of the European Dual Career Discourse!
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 October 21-23, 202, ENGSO organized the European Sport Platform in Vilnius, Lithuania. The first day of the event was dedicated to the results of the EU-funded project CHAMP, which was dedicated to the innovation and modernization of sport clubs and sports movements.
The morning of the second day was dedicated to EU policies for sport, with particular focus on building inclusive process, including presentations by Stefan Bergh, ENGSO President, Diana Reklaitiene, Lithuanian Sport University Rector, Darius Saluga, Lithuanian Union of Sport Federations President, and Florencia Van Houdt, Head of the Unit for Sport at the European Commission.
The afternoon was dedicated to workshops focused on Evidence for impact – how grassroots sports can use research more efficiently? – Equality in Sport – Change that Inspires Change – and Dual Career: from policy to practice.
Moderated by Agne Vanagiene, Lithuanian National Olympic Committee, the keynote speaker of the dual career workshop, Laura Capranica – EAS President, reported the recent progress of the European discourse on dual career and the outcomes of the recently finalized EU-funded projects: “AMID – Athletic Migration in Dual Career”, coordinated by the University of Salzburg, Austria (https://blogi.eoppimispalvelut.fi/amid/) and “Ed Media – Media as a channel of Athletes’ Dual Careers promotion and education”, coordinated by the Lietuvos Sporto Universitetas of Kaunas, Lithuania (https://www.lsu.lt/en/project-edmedia/); the EU-funded approaching the finish line: “EMPATIA – Education Model for Parents of AThlete in Academics”, coordinated by the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (https://www.empatiasport.eu); “More than Gold”, coordinated by the University of Latvia (https://morethangold.eu); “DONA – Dual Career for wOmeN Athlete”, coordinated by the Associació Esportiva Carles Vallbona, Spain; “SOS – Sport Opens Schools”, coordinated by the Centro Universitario Sportivo di Padova, Italy (https://www.sportopensschool.eu); “STARTING11”, coordinated by Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands (https://starting11.eu); and the ongoing projects: “Para-Limits”, coordinated by the Universitad Catolica de Murcia – UCAM, Spain (https://paralimits.eu); “ELCAMP A Self-employment Career Option for Elite Athletes: Innovative Sport-focused Entrepreneurship Bootcamp”, coordinated by Collective Innovation AS (COLLINN), Norway; and BRAVA-DC – BRAnd Value Alignment through Dual Career, coordinated by the University of Limerick, Ireland. In particular, the already available dual career educational platforms of EdMedia (https://www.lsu.lt/en/project-edmedia/edmedia-online-platform/); and EMPATIA (https://edu.empatiasport.eu/eng/) were presented, as well the new frontiers of a dual career extended to sportspersons (e.g., coaches, referees, and sports managers) and the development of dual career monitoring.
Inga Staskeviciute Butiene, Associate Professor at the Lithuanian Sports University, presented the Lithuanian dual career observatory and the follow-up findings of the EdMedia project, including the evolution of a dual career in Lithuania. Wolfgang Stockinger, TW1N CEO (Austria), illustrated the activities of the programme RESPECT YOUR TALENT, which promotes the holistic development of talented players’ careers on and off the handball court. Finally, the Olympic athlete specialized in walking and sports journalist Brigita Virbalytė-Dimšienė offered her experience regarding the difficulties and barriers dual career employee-athletes encounter in balancing their working and sports commitments.
The last day of the event encompassed the workshop “Sustainability in and through Sport – Air Quality (air quality issues that impact global sport”, including presentations by Paolo Emilio Adami – Medical Manager – Health and Science Department at World Athletic, Niki Koutrou, Bournemouth University, UK, and EU funded PlayGreen project, and Ivana Pranjic, ENGSO. Finally, Yves Le Lostecque, Head of Erasmus Mundus & Sport Unit – EACEA presented “Capacity building: Next funding program for sport”
Stefan Bergh, ENGSO President, and Sara Massini, ENGSO Secretary General closed the event and announced that the next European Sport Forum will be in the Netherlands.
On October 14, 2021, the University of Pisa, Italy hosted the “Dual Career – Modernization of the University”.
Paolo Maria Mancarella, University Rector and Michele Conti, Major of Pisa welcomed the participants, whereas Marco Gesi, Pro-Rector for Sport and organizer of the event introduced the evolution of a dual career in Italy and at the University of Pisa, envisaging more structured strategies at the national level.
Antonio
Dima, President of CUSI – The Italian University Sport Association, underlined the relevance of synergies between institutions to achieve common goals.
Laura Capranica, EAS President, illustrated the progression of a dual career in Europe and envisioned the challenges for future development of dual career, also including coaches, referees, sports managers, and employee-athletes/coaches.
Paolo Bouquet, President of Unisport Italia, emphasized the role of the association of Italian Universities interested in sport in contributing to the advancement of an Italian discourse in dual career and pointed out the opportunities for universities to broaden their horizon in and through sports.
Salvatore Sanzo, a Member of the Board of the Italian Olympic Committee, recalled his personal experience as a student-athlete at the University of Pisa and substantiated the importance of a dual career in the Italian Olympic agenda.
Sara Morganti, a bronze Paralympic medalist in Tokyo 2020, offered her experience regarding the difficulties and barriers she encountered in managing her dual career as a student-athlete and as an employee-athlete.
Finally, Giovanni Malagò, President of the Italian Olympic Committee highlighted the multi-faceted dual career environments with a variety of actors having distinct and peculiar responsibilities in supporting the holistic development of athletes and in establishing an effective dialogue to ensure cultural progress in the sport. At the end of the event, CONI merits were awarded to sportsmen and sportswomen.
On October 11, 2021, the meeting of the Bureau of the Consultative Committee of EPAS was organized in a hybrid format, with Chair Kole Gjeloshaj (ISF), Laura Capranica (EAS), James Ogilvie (UEFA) and Francine Raveney (EPAS) in presence at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and Tone Jagodic (EOC), Louis Mustakas (ENSE), Janez Sodrznik (TAFISA) and Michael Trinker (EPAS) in a telematic modality.
During the meeting, the need to improve communication with the Members of the Consultative Committee has been highlighted and possible actions have been envisaged. In particular, introductory sessions for new CC members have been proposed. Among dissemination activities, face-to-face and online conferences and webinars on specific issues have been considered relevant, as well as the dissemination of Conference results, such as those of the EPAS diversity conference 2021 (https://rm.coe.int/draft-conclusions-and-recommendations-dc2021-sf-18092021rev/1680a3ea2e).
The Bureau also discussed upcoming events, including the planning and selection of the topics of the next webinars, starting from February 2022. Upcoming events encompass the Conference on integrity in sport, to be held in Rome, Italy, on 6/7 December 2021, a launching event on the European Sports Charter (https://rm.coe.int/recommendation-cm-rec-2021-5-on-the-revision-of-the-european-sport-cha/1680a43914) to be expected next November 2021. To note, Members of the Consultative Committee will be involved in the upcoming evaluation visits on the European Sports Charter expected in North Macedonia and Albania.
Finally, the relevance of the projects “Joint project: Hate speech in sport”, “Start to Talk”, and “Child Safeguarding in Sport” has been mentioned, also in light of the planning for future project proposals.
On September 20-22 the 2021 EAS Annual Conference was organized in Lisbon, Portugal, by the University Institute of Lisbon – ISCTE. The three-day event was organized in a blended format, with 40 participants from 12 different countries in the presence and others attending online.
On September 20, the Conference focused on Dual Career Policies, with Vítor Pataco reporting on the 2021 Portuguese EU Presidency, and Mojca Doupona describing the ongoing activities of the Slovenian EU Presidency.
- Tomasz Francowsky, Member of the European Parliament, anticipated an extension of dual career to sport staff in the upcoming Report on EU Sports Policy of the European Parliament.
- Yves Le Lostecque, Head of the European Commission Sport Unit, illustrated the future opportunities provided by the European Commission. The durable links of EAS with the European policymakers supporting dual career was testified by the participation of Agata Dziarnowska as a special guest.
- With respect to the Portuguese policies, Rui Vieira and Josefina Cruz presented the case of Ginásio Clube Português and António Figueiredo informed on the Portuguese University Dual Career Policy.
- The presentations of 2020-2021 Bengt Nybelius Scholarships winners Malene Knudsen and Natasa Verk ended the first morning session.
In the afternoon, the session was dedicated to dual career best practices in different settings and countries.
On September 21, the morning session focused on Dual Career in football and was hosted at the City of Football in Oeiras, home to the Portuguese Football Federation.
- After José Couceiro, Vice-president and National Director of the Portuguese Football Federation, welcomed the EAS guests, presentations by André Seabra – Director of the Portugal Football School, Pedro Dionísio – Dual Career Manager Course from ISCTE, and Aida Ramos – a psychologist from the Sporting Clube de Portugal Academy, followed.
- In the afternoon, the EAS General Assembly took place at ISCTE. After approving the EAS 2020 and ongoing 2021 activity and financial reports, the Assembly was notified of the resignation of Joerg Foerster as a Member of the Executive Committee due to his new position at EUSA and commitment to the organization of the Universiade. The Assembly recognized the tremendous work accomplished by Joerg Foerster since the establishment of EAS and hoped that he will establish new and fruitful cooperation on dual career on behalf of EAS. To replace the vacant position, the Assembly unanimously voted as a Member of the Executive Committee Prof. Antonio Sánchez Pato from the Universidad Catòlica de Murcia, Spain.
At the beginning of the last day, the final event of the EMPATIA ERASMUS+ Sport Programme took place.
- Laura Capranica and Viktorija Pecnikar-Oblak reported on the evidence- and eminence-based knowledge employed to develop the EMPATIA educational programme designed to help parents/guardians of student-athletes to support their children. Thus, the participants had the opportunity to navigate and evaluate the presentations were the multilingual EMPATIA platform (https://edu.empatiasport.eu/eng/).
- The last session encompassed presentations of the ERASMUS+ Sport projects AMID, PARA-LIMITS, DONA, SCORES, STARTING11, YODA Mentors, and More Than Gold. Finally, President
Laura Capranica thanked Duarte Nuno Lopes, Tiago Samuel da Silva, and ICSTE for their courage, efforts, and hard work in organizing such a tremendous 2021 EAS Conference despite the day-by-day challenges posed by COVID-19 pandemic and invited the EAS Members to attend the 2022 EAS Annual Conference in Spain.
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 September 1, 2021, the President (Laura Capranica) and the Treasurer (Mojca Doupona) of EAS were invited to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Oulu region academy of sports (ORAS) established in 2001, which has a leading role in a new approach of dual career not only in Finland but also in and beyond Europe. Thanks to the vision of Risto Keskitalo, Head of coaching at the Kastelli Upper Secondary Sports School of Oulu (established in 1986), initiator of the first sports academy ORAS and EAS founder, the term dual career entered the European sports vocabulary, later adopted worldwide. Furthermore, with the help of Bengt Nybelius (Falun, Sweden), he organized the first European meeting on dual career and our Network was established.
During the past 20 years, dual career grew stronger in Finland, and the Oulu Sports Academy is leading the Finnish Sports Academies. The relevance of this event was testified by the participation of 60 distinguished guests from the city of Oulu (the Mayor Mrs. Päivi Laajala and the Chairman of the City Council Mr. Juha Hänninen – former Olympic athlete), the Finnish Olympic Committee (Antti Paananen and Jarno Parikka), the Rectors and study guiding persons of sports school from all over Finland, the Finnish baseball federation and local club Oulun Kärpät, and Jussi Jokinen, a former professional NHL ice hockey player who attended the Kastelli Upper Secondary Sports School.
The City Mayor, Mrs. Päivi Laajala informed the guests of the relevance of Oulu for innovative projects, including the designation of Oulu as the 2026 Capital of Culture. Furthermore, past, actual, and future activities in the sports area have been presented.
The President of EAS had the opportunity to thank the founder of our Network for initiating the European dual career adventure and contributing to the development of a European discourse with his dedication as a lifetime member of the EAS Executive Committee. She illustrated the EAS aims, pillars, activities carried out at institutional levels, and its involvement in the ongoing Erasmus+ Collaborative Partnerships EMPATIA for the provision of an online educational programme for parents of dual career athletes (https://edu.empatiasport.eu), SOS for the implementation of physical education at high school level, STARTING 11 for the provision of an online platform to assists institutions in sport, education and the labour market to boost the implementation of dual career services for athletes (https://starting11.eu), DONA for the implementation of dual career for female volleyball players, More than Gold for the implementation of dual career policies at higher educational institutions, ED MEDIA for the promotion of athletes’ dual career through the social media (https://www.lsu.lt/en/project-edmedia/edmedia-online-platform/), BRAVA-DC for the alignment between dual career and brand values, ELCAMP to develop a sports-focused entrepreneurship programme for talented, elite and retired athletes, and Para-Limits to empower dual career para-athletes (https://paralimits.eu).
At the end of her presentation, EAS invited all the guests to attend the 18 Annual Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, next September 20-22, 2021 (https://eas-lisboa2021.iscte-iul.pt).
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Email: info@dualcareer.eu