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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.