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.