On September 24, 2020, the University of Rome Foro Italico participated in the Prix Italia YLAB with four videos on the COVID-19 lockdown of four students.

Under the supervision of Prof. Antonio Tessitore and dr. Fabrizio Aversa – Head of the Audiovisual and Multimedia office, the protagonist of the video “Dual Career” was Eva Ferraguti, an Italian international karate dual career athlete. The video
presented the perseverance and commitment of Eva in combining elite sport and higher education, especially challenged during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Prix Italia is an international competition organised by the Italian National television (RAI) dedicated to quality Radio, TV and Internet programmes and its Ylab is an educational platform open to universities.

The four videos of the University of Foro Italico received a special mention for promoting the sport values, the spirit of teamwork, and to kick off a new start after COVID-19.
The interview with Eva Ferracuti was broadcasted by Rai3 and Rai Play (streaming).
The Chinese Taipei University Sports Federation (Taiwan) organized the 2020 University Sports Club Workshop for the celebration of the International Day of University Sport on September 18-20, 2020.
During this event, Dr Giancarlo Condello, Assistant Professor at the University of Taipei, lectured on “Dual career – Having a vision of the future”, presenting dual career principles, European actions and best practices, the activities of the EAS, and evidence-based knowledge.
In the last years, members of the EAS Executive Board have been invited to share their expertise during the anniversary celebration of the University of Taipei, which is a well-established and well-recognized institute in Taiwan strongly engaged in international cooperations with several educational institutes worldwide.
Dr Condello also presented recent evidence obtained from the FISU-EAS survey administered to student-athletes competing at the Taipei 2017, 29th Summer Universiade. The dissemination of these findings can contribute to enhancing the student-athlete support in developing their sport and education careers.
Thanks to the Team of the University of Hamburg and the efforts of the EAS Executive Committee the dual career community met also in 2020 despite the restrictions COVID-19 pandemic.
The one-day virtual event included three sections: lectures on the European dual career discourse, the reports of eight Collaborative Partnerships in dual career, and two dual career workshops.
On behalf of the Organizing Committee, Joerg Foerster (University of Hamburg Sport Service and EAS Board Member) welcomed more than 100 participants from different Continents despite the relevant difference in time zones.
Then, President Laura Capranica updated on the involvement of the Network in several exciting applications on dual career aspects still in need to be considered, and on its election as a Member of the Consultative Committee Bureau of the EPAS-Council of Europe, and on a future dissemination activity for its members.
Yves Le Lostecque, Head of the Sport Unit of the European Commission, informed on the European strategies, policies, programmes, opportunities, and activities also in light of the actual pandemic crisis.
Agata Dziarnowska, who recently joined the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions of the European Commission, contributed to a vision of the future European dual career.
The career counsellors Pamela Wittfothand and Leif Böhnert informed the participants on the German dual career approach and work at the Olympic Training Center in Hamburg.
Finally, two interesting workshops allowed deep insights in the ED MEDIA and STARTING 11 projects. In particular, for ED MEDIA Inga Staškevičiūtė-Butienė presented the outcomes of the gaps in the implementation of the EU Dual Career Guidelines for Athletes, Ferran Calabuig-Moreno the videos on the opinions of a manager, a policy maker, and a Rector, Ole Keldorf led the discussion on potential activities to raise the awareness on dual career, and Irena Valentine collected the participants’ opinion on how to advance dual career trough media.
During the STARTING 11 workshop moderated by Dennis van Vlaanderen and Wolfgang Stockinger, two tools of the European dual career toolkit were presented, and the participants’ feedback on their content and format were gathered.
Finally, Cristina Cortis presented the venue of the 2022 EAS Annual Conference to be hosted by the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio in the Angevin-Aragonese Castle of Gaeta, Italy.
On September 8, 2020, during a blended meeting organized on-site (Strasbourg) and in a virtual modality, EAS has been re-elected as a Member of the 2020-2022 Bureau of the Consultative Committee of EPAS – Council of Europe.

The 2020-2022 Bureau of the Consultative Committee is chaired by Kole Gjeloshaj (International Sport School Federation- ISF), with Tone Jagodic (European Olympic Committees-EOC) acting as Vice-Chair, and Laura Capranica (EAS), Louis Mustakas (European Network of Sport Education-ENSE), James Ogilvie (Union of European Football Associations-UEFA), and Janez Sodrznik (The Association for International Sport for All-TAFISA) as bureau members.
In providing a platform for co-operation between the public authorities of its 39 Member States and 25 sport organizations, EPAS contributes to the development of the European sport culture through the promotion of the values of the European Sports Charter.

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:
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 3, 2020, UNISPORT-Italia (the network of 44 Italian universities interested in sport, and proactive member of EAS) organized the last virtual cafè before the summer break. This event focused on good practices of university sports, including dual career policies and services.
Specifically, Rector’s Delegate for sport Francesco Calvetti presented the Polytechnic of Milan, and Rector’s Delegate for sport and Member of the National Council of the University Sport association-CUSI Claudio Bertoletti presented the University of Bergamo.
The event was a significant opportunity to debate new models of university sport governance and to envisage the implementation of good practices at a higher educational level.
In autumn UNISPORT Italia will propose new events to exchange information useful for the development of university sport. At present, all the past virtual meetings are available on the UNISPORT-Italia new youtube channel UNISPORT ITALIA
May 8 – The dual career of athletes.
May 15 – Sport reopens in safety. The University’s contribution to Italian sport.
May 22 – Safety in sports practices.
May 29 – COVID-19 & University sport, the European approach to the crisis.
June 5 – E-learning and training, the recipe of the young athletes of the future.
June 12 – Sport meets innovation: a fast-growing sector for R&D opportunities.
June 19 – Social responsibility and university sport.
July 3 – Case studies: Good practices of university sport management
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 July 2, 2020, in the Olympic torches hall Giovanni Malagò – President of the Italian Olympic Committee/CONI, Antonio Dima – President of the Italian University Sports Association/CUSI, and Paolo Bouquet – President of the UNISPORT-ITALIA network signed a protocol on dual careers at the presence of President Raffaella Masciadri and Secretary Raffaella Chiussi of the Italian Athletes Commission, representatives of the Unisport-Italia Board Marco Barla, Marco Gesi, Maurizio Marano, Giovanni Forconi, and Laura Capranica President of EAS, the European Dual Career network.
To implement this dual career protocol, further steps encompass concrete actions for the establishment of collaborative networks of relevant stakeholders and a governmental working table for the definition of national dual careers guidelines.
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.