EAS Cafe
“Dual Career from Education to Work: Human Right of the Sportsperson”
Zoom Meeting February 27, 2023 (from 12:00 CET)
12:00 Welcome
Prof. Antonio Tessitore, PhD – University of Rome Foro Italico, and Chair of the EAS Scientific Committee.
12:10 – Köle Gjeloshaj, PhD: “Dual career of athletes at the International sports organizations”
Vice-President of the Panathlon Wallonie-Bruxeles, Belgium and strategic coordinator of the president of the European Fair-Play Movement, Scientific Collaborator at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, dr. Gjeloshaj worked from 1996 to 2017 at the International University Sports Federation (FISU), for which he set up the educational and development departments as Director of the Educational department. He joined the International School Sport Federation (ISF) in 2018, where he covered the position of Deputy Secretary General until 2022. He is now a civil servant within the Federation Wallonie Bruxelles as coordinator of the logistical team for the Belgium Presidency of the EU in 2024 of the International Relations Department. Dr. Gjeloshaj was the team leader for FISU of the Proclamation by UNESCO (2015) of the International Day of University Sport. The Co-rapporteur (2021-22) of the High Level Group on Gender Equality in Sport of the European Commission. From 2020 to 2022, he chaired the Consultative Committee of the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport of the Council of Europe. He is an alumni of ULB (Political sciences) and the University of Pisa (Anti mafia and corruption).
12:35 – Giovanni Di Cola, PhD: “Rights and obligations and dual career of professional athletes”
Dr. Giovanni Di Cola has a wide experience within the United Nations System, having served in various UN agencies (UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, and ILO) with assignments at the UN Staff College and the UN Secretariat, on matters related to the UN reform, Youth leadership and Sport for Development and Peace. He contributed to establish a network of 150 universities, on local economic development as ILO inter-regional programme (Universitas) coordinator between 2001 and 2008 based in Geneva. Since 2016, he was instrumental in establishing the multistakeholder initiative as Centre for Sport and Human Rights in 2021, to which he ensured that ILO could be represented as founding member and permanent observer. He was lead expert of the ILO Global Forum on Decent work in the world of sport of January 2020, in which the ILO Points of Consensus were adopted.
13:00 – General discussions and concluding Remarks
EAS Online Cafè was held online December 5, 2022
AGENDA
12:00 Welcome
Prof. Daniele Conte, PhD – University of Rome Foro Italico and Lithuanian Sports University.
12:10 Hakon Ege – ELCAMP Project: A Self-employment Career Option for Athletes: Sports Entrepreneurship Bootcamp
Håkon Ege performed Teakwondo professionally for 12 years. After his sporting career, he started to work as a researcher, lecturer and project manager in different organizations such as universities and non-governmental organizations. He is working on encouraging and empowering individuals and organisations to be more innovative and entrepreneurial in and through sport so that they can design, develop and initiate actions that address socio-economic and planetary needs. In 2018, he launched Collective Innovation, an impact-driven initiative to foster and drive innovation in Norway and Europe.
12:25 Sinan Güler – Giving Back to Sports and Innovation
Sinan Güler is a former national basketball player with a 16-year basketball career, winning the league championships and league cup championships, as well as the 2nd place in the World Cup with the National Team in 2010 and the EuroCup with Galatasaray in 2016. In 2011, he started a social initiative called Güler Legacy with his older brother Muratcan Güler, who is also a former basketball player, and his father Necati Güler. Since 2012, he has been doing important work in the field of startup ecosystem, as an angel investor and mentor. Since 2020 he has been interested in sports technologies & innovation.
12:40 Morten Munch Mindegaard – The ATLas project on Dual Career Entrepreneurship
Dual Career Adviser at the Enterprise and Innovation – Innovation and Entrepreneurship (The Kitchen)
of the University of Aarhus. Aarhus University and The Kitchen is part of the Erasmus+ course AtLAS, which is an entrepreneurial course tailor-made for elite athletes who have the opportunity to test themselves in an entrepreneurial context.
12:55 General discussions and concluding Remarks
On June 21 the seventh virtual EAS cafè focused on the dual career of paralympic athletes, which attracted more than 50 participants. Prof. Alejandro Leiva-Arcas, Deputy Director of the Faculty of Sport at UCAM moderated the event and presented the aims and progress of the ERASMUS+ project Dual Career of Student-Athletes with Disabilities as a Tool for Social Inclusion (Para-Limits, 622213-EPP-1-2020-1-ES-SPO-SCP) coordinated by the Catholic University of Murcia (UCAM), Spain, in cooperation with University Foro Italico of Rome (IT), UNEFS (RO), IPV (PT), University of Limerick (IE), COLLINN (NO), EAS Network (MT), the European Paralympic Committee (AT) and the FUNDACION ONCE (ES).
As the first speaker, Lisa Gjessing presented her experience as a taekwondo athlete who underwent the amputation of her left arm. As a legal prosecutor for the Danish police and mother, Lisa described the opportunities provided by the paralympic sport and her challenges in managing her family life, and sport and working careers. She informed that Team Denmark and ESAA offer the same support to Olympic and Paralympic athletes, as well as sponsorships and working flexibility. Furthermore, in case the para-athlete decides to reduce the working hours, her/his salary is maintained with integration from the sports organization. Despite this favourable environment, the para-athlete has to make choices to establish priorities and to manage changes in their programme, especially to manage the parental role.
A different perspective was provided by the Italian Flatwater Sprint Paracanoe Kayaker and Paralympic medallist in Tokyo, Federico Mancarella. Having experienced a disability from his birth, Federico started being engaged in the sport when he was a student. Considering that canoeing requires expensive equipment and long travelling to reach the training and competitive sites, the parents often represent the only support providers. Furthermore, the working sector lacks a dual career culture, so the athletes have to consider dropping out of sports or their working career, which was actually his situation when he fired himself to prepare for the Tokyo Paralympics. Furthermore, parasports do not attract sponsorships because of limited media attention. Federico also envisaged some solutions, including working flexibility, economic support from the public and private sectors, and structured support.
In summarizing the major themes discussed during the Cafè, Prof. Alejandro Leiva-Arcas underlined that the Para-limits project will indicate guidelines for the advancement of dual career policies for paralympic athletes, as well as the need to educate tutors for this special population. Finally, he presented the website of the 2022 EAS Annual Conference to be held in Cartagena, Spain, next September 28-30: http://eventos.ucam.edu/85445/tickets.html
He highlighted that the early bird deadline is August 28 (http://eventos.ucam.edu/85445/section/38290/eas-conference-2022.html), whereas the deadline for the call for abstracts is August 31 (http://eventos.ucam.edu/85445/section/38291/eas-conference-2022.html). Finally, young researchers could apply to the Bengt Nybelius Scholarship before July 1 https://www.dualcareer.eu/call-for-papers-bengt-nybelius-scholarship-2022/.
The Eight EAS Cafè will be organized in Fall 2022.
Have a nice summer and see you in Cartagena.
Zoom Meeting June 21, 2022 (from 12:00 CET)
12:00 Welcome
Prof. Alejandro Leiva-Arcas, PhD – Deputy Director of the Faculty of Sport at UCAM; Member of the Erasmus+ Para-limits project.
12:10 The Danish Paralympic structure and my personal Dual Career strategy on the way to the medals
Prof. Lisa Gjessing is a Danish Paralympic gold medalist in taekwondo in Tokyo 2020, four-time world champion and three-time European champion, and one of the flag bearers for Denmark during the opening ceremony of the 2020 Summer Paralympics. She graduated in law and works as a prosecutor for the Danish police.
12:30 My dual career experience as a student and worker
Federico Mancarella is an Italian Flatwater Sprint Paracanoe Kayaker, bronze medalist in Tokyo 2020, World and European medalist. He graduated in Business and worked for international bank companies till he quit his job to prepare for the Paralympic Games.
12:50 General discussions
13:00 Concluding Remarks and announcement of the next EAS Annual Conference (September 28-30, Cartagena, Spain)
On March 24 the sixth virtual EAS cafè focused on the good practices and opportunities for dual career service providers. Antonino Bianco, Professor of Sports Sciences and Deputy Dean for International Relations at the University of Palermo moderated the event offering good practices at the Catholic University of Murcia (UCAM), Spain, and future educational opportunities for dual career service providers through the ERASMUS+Sport Collaborative Partnership STARTING11 platform.
The outstanding dual career approach at UCAM was illustrated by Prof. Antonio Sanchez-Pato and Prof. Alejandro Leiva-Arcas, Dean and Deputy Director of the Faculty of Sport at UCAM, respectively. Since 2011, UCAM established a solid dual career service for 425 Spanish athletes as students (males 55%, females 45%) competing in 35 different sports disciplines and cooperated in more than ten ERASMUS+Sport Collaborative Partnerships in dual career. In particular, during the last two Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, UCAM Student-athletes won 24 (Rio 2016: 15 Olympic, 9 Paralympic) and 27 (Tokyo 2020: 20 Olympic, 7 Paralympic) medals. The dual career programme at UCAM is based on four pillars: Recruitment, Administrative assistance, Academic support, and Research development. Recruitment provides 90% full scholarships and 10% discount fees (range 20-50%), including a possibility to extend the scholarship to family members in case of relocation. Whilst the administrative assistance is managed by an academic manager helping with administrative issues and financial support, the academic support involves both professors and students with mentoring and study buddy roles, respectively. Through Research, UCAM approaches dual career as an ongoing laboratory and establishes cooperation with several academic institutions and sport bodies. In fact, in 2015 UCAM published the handbook “An Innovative European Sports Tutorship Model of the Dual Career of Student-Athletes” (https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/eplus-project-details#project/603346-EPP-1-2018-1-LV-SPO-SCP), in 2021 a special issue on Dual Career of the peer-review journal of UCAM “Cultura, Ciencia y Deporte” encompassing 11 international scientific contributions (https://ccd.ucam.edu/index.php/revista/issue/view/87), and in 2022 the Guidelines to Promote the Dual Career of Athletes-Students (Methodology for Universities and Manual for Authorities) within the More Than Gold ERASMUS+Sport Collaborative Partnership (https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/eplus-project-details#project/603346-EPP-1-2018-1-LV-SPO-SCP). Finally, UCAM will host in Cartagena, Spain, the 2022 EAS Annual Conference and General Assembly next September 28-30.
Dennis van Vlaanderen and Wolfgang Stockinger Manager of Elite Sport & Education at the Amsterdam University of Applied Science and CEO of TW1N illustrated the educational platform for dual career service providers developed within the ERASMUS+Sport Collaborative Partnership STARTING11 to facilitate the implementation and professionalize dual career practice at sport, education and the labour market levels. In having in mind the needs of the dual career practitioner and supporter, the ready-made and fully customizable digital tools pertains three main service areas: Manage, Train, and Counsel. In particular, the manage area helps building the political, theoretical and infrastructural know-how to implement and administrate dual career services as well as to efficiently communicate towards the most relevant dual career stakeholders. The train aims to prepare, sensitize and empower athletes by providing them with knowledge, inspiration and skills to successfully pursue their dual careers. The Counsel area intends to professionalize interpersonal counselling services to foster the coping, decision-making and planning capability of athletes during career transitions. At the end of their presentation, Dennis van Vlaanderen and Wolfgang Stockinger invited the participants to attend the STARTING 11 Final Conference at the Amsterdam Olympic Stadium next May 12, 2022. The Event will allow to explore the European Dual Career Toolkit first-hand, to attend presentations and workshops of international dual career experts and high-performance athletes, and to network with like-minded professionals from across Europe. The link for further information and registration ihttps://starting11.eu/conference/.
After the general discussion, Prof. Bianco complimented with the speakers and especially appreciated the outputs of their Collaborative Partnerships, which provide useful material freely accessible online for the benefit of dual career service providers.
On December 10, 2021, the fifth virtual EAS cafè addressed the support of dual career high school athletes especially during the critical pandemic situation. Masar Gjaka, winner of the 2018 Bengt Nybelius award and currently Dean of the Faculty of Sport and Movement Science, UBT College, Pristina, Kosovo, moderated the event, which offered Italian, Slovenian, and Danish approaches and experiences, as well as an opportunity to envisage future actions and visions in dual career of talented athletes.
Paola Deiana, Director of the Office V, Italian Ministry of Education, presented the development of the experimental dual career high school programme, which was introduced in 2015 and currently involves more than 1500 schools, 5000 tutors, and 14000 athletes meeting the requirements established by the Italian Olympic Committee, Italian Paralympic Committee and the Italian Sports Federations. Despite its positive trend, this programme involves a lower number of female athletes with respect to male athletes and a low percentage of Paralympic athletes with respect to their Olympic counterparts. Paola Deiana anticipated that the Italian Ministry of Education is envisaging an extension of the programme to all the Italian schools, from the primary schools to the universities, and an equity for gender and capabilities. Furthermore, she highlighted the need of an innovative educational approach, which should be effective in providing knowledge with a reduced live-teaching time and encompassing sports issues in the different topics of high school curricula.
Jožef Križaj, Assistant Professor and Head of the Postgraduate Doctoral Studies Department at the Faculty of Sport University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, gave a contribution as a researcher and as a parent supporting the dual career of elite youth athletes. He illustrated the dual career programme at the Slovenian high schools and presented some challenges youth athletes faced during the COVID-19 lockdown. In particular, he disclosed the results of a national research, which highlighted differences between athletes of individual and team sports, the latter suffering more the negative effects of lockdown for missing group training sessions and weekly competitions. Jožef Križaj urged particular attention to adolescent athletes to prevent pandemic-related sport dropouts and to sustain a proper development of sport skills during the post-pandemic time. This concern is especially evident after the past two years and can heavily affect the sports system in a near future.
Ole Keldorf, Head of Sport at the prestigious Elite Sports Academy of Aarhus (ESAA), Denmark, and member of the EAS Executive Board, gave a precious contribution to the debate in presenting the pandemic-related critical aspects observed in Danish youth athletes. Data from the ESAA observatory suggest that dual career actors should place particular attention to the talented youth athletes’ perception and attitudes towards sports, life, and wellbeing. He claimed that the European dual career culture should consider particularly relevant the mental health of youth athletes and offered the ESAA survey as a valuable example of dual career best practice for monitoring the wellbeing of athletes as students. In fact, the systematic collection of athletes’ perceptions regarding their sports enjoyment, recovery, and social aspects could be crucial not only to prevent sport disengagement and dropouts but also to foreseeing new avenues for sport development. Ole Keldorf also called for a cooperation between countries to share possible solutions to the challenges posed by this pandemic situation.
In considering the call for the Next Decade of European Education through a cooperation between educational institutions in different countries (https://ec.europa.eu/education/summit/next-decade-european-education_en ), members of the EAS community were invited to be proactive in establishing innovative collaborative partnerships in dual career for high school athletes.
The fifth EAS Virtual Cafè attracted around 60 European dual career experts and will come back on February 2022.
To disseminate the outcomes of the EU Collaborative Partnership “More Than Gold’ (603346-EPP-1-2018-1-LV-SPO-SCP)”, the fourth EAS Virtual Cafè attracted around 50 European dual career experts.
Raluca Mihaela Onose, lecturer at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romanian Partner of the More than Gold Project, moderated the contributions of Nuno Laurentino and Paolo Bouquet. They presented the vision and organization of dual career in Portugal and Italy, respectively.
As a former Olympic swimmer in 1996 and 2000, Vice-President of the Portuguese Swimming Federation, and member of the Olympic Athletes’ Commission, Mr Laurentino is currently Deputy of the Secretary of State for Youth and Sport, which strongly supports a dual career in Portugal. He illustrated the origin, evolution and successful outcomes of the dual career at the Portuguese high school level, which represents a recognized best practice also at the international level. Mr Laurentino also presented the new challenges to enhance dual career paths at the university level, necessary to meet the recent national law supporting dual career at tertiary education.
Prof. Paolo Bouquet illustrated the three-level dual career programme at the Italian University of Trento, which considers sports as an opportunity for the academic community at large. In particular, this university will be involved in the 2026 winter Olympics, which represent a tremendous chance for the development of the whole region and innovative approaches in and through sports. In this vein, the University of Trento organized the Italian network of universities interested in sports issues. Specific to dual career, the official website of the UNISPORT Italia allows student-athletes to filter according to their expectations and needs the dual-career programmes offered at Italian higher institutions.
Towards the end of the event, the 18th EAS Annual Conference to be held face-to-face in Lisbon next September 20-23, 2021, was presented and participants were invited to submit abstracts on dual career activities.
THE 2021 EAS CAFè will come back In the fall term.
Originating fro
m the findings of the EU Collaborative Partnership “Media as a channel of Athletes’ Dual Careers promotion and education (EdMedia, 603456-EPP-1-2018-1-LT-SPO-SCP)”, the third EAS Virtual Cafè attracted around 80 European dual career experts.
Andrej Pisl, Communications and Projects Manager at European University Sports Association – EUSA and Member of the Ed Media Collaborative Partnership, illustrated the aims of the project and its educational platform (https://www.lsu.lt/en/project-edmedia/edmedia-online-platform/), which could be useful for both student-athletes and media professionals. He also moderated the contributions of Andreas Küttel and Flavia Guidotti, who presented their personal experiences as athletes and coach, respectively.
Andreas Küttel, former Swiss ski-jumping world champion and five-time Olympic athlete, presented his personal experience and claimed that student-athletes can benefit from unveiling their academic career to better attract the attention of the media and general public. As an Assistant Professor at SDU, and sports psychological consultant, he also recognized the need to educate student-athletes on the role of media and social media to construct a positive image including also their dual career.
Flavia Guidotti, former volleyball player and actual physical trainer of the AO THIRAS Santorini Volleyball team (Greece), focused on the role of dual career in team sports that provide limited revenues to athletes if any. As a dual career expert, she presented her experience with elite athletes as students, who previously lacked support at the sport and academic level. In considering the role model of successful student-athletes crucial for youth athletes, Flavia envisaged a wise use of media and social media to spread the message that the combination of elite sport and academic career is achievable.
Petra Robnik, Head of Athletes Career Centre / Secretary of Slovenian Olympians Association at Olympic Committee of Slovenia, commented thatproper communication can be beneficial not only for athletes but also for different dual career stakeholders, who could profit from information on successful dual career programmes and the outcomes of dual career projects.
Flowing a general discussion, Andrej Pisl summarized the outcomes of the café and invited the participants to attend the fourth EAS Virtual Cafè to be organized next June and the Annual Conference to be held next September in Lisbon, European Capital of Sport 2021.
Third EAS Online Cafè
“Media Role in the Promotion of the European Dual Career Culture”
Zoom Meeting April 26, 2021 (from 12:00 CETS)
12:00 Welcome
Andrej Pisl – Communications and Projects Manager at European University Sports Association – EUSA and Member of the Ed Media Collaborative Partnership.
12:20 The former athlete and actual dual career scholar’s view
Andreas Küttel – Swiss former ski-jumping world champion and five-time Olympic athlete, Assistant Professor at SDU, and sports psychological consultant.
12:40 The coach’s view
Flavia Guidotti – Physical trainer of the AO THIRAS Santorini Volleyball team (Greece) and dual career scholar.
13:00 General discussions
13:25 Concluding Remarks and announcement of next EAS online café
REG. NUMBER: Voluntary Organisation registration VO/1270
PIC NUMBER: 913459865
Email: info@dualcareer.eu