PROJECTS / DOCUMENTS
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.
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.
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.
Bengt Nybelius, together with Risto Keskitalo, the founder of the European Athlete as Student Network (EAS), was a brilliant mind, who settled the objectives and the structure of the organisation in 2004. He passed away in 2011, and EAS decided to establish a scholarship to carry on the legacy of his work. Therefore, we are happy to announce the Call for Paper of the “2021 Bengt Nybelius Scholarship”
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
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