ERASMUS+ Projects

ICSSPE has achieved a series of important successes in the recent funding opportunity from the European Union. They all relate to research and development projects, with partner organisations from across Europe. In one of these projects, ICSSPE is taking the lead.

The EU's programme to support education, training, research and youth in sport is called Erasmus+. Its budget of €14.7 billion provides opportunities for millions of Europeans. ICSSPE’s projects all relate to either research or development in sport:

PEAK - The three-year project will promote and support good governance in sport by preparing coaching policy recommendations for national and international sport federations, coaching bodies and governments.

The results of the PEAK Project will be beneficial to:

• Coaches: Enhancement of the coaching programmes they participate in, clarity of their roles and responsibilities in organisational governance, and advancement of coaching towards a regulated profession.
• Sport Federations: Improved coaching leadership at all levels, and improved relationships with coaches and coaches’ associations.
• Governments: Improved coaching systems, by improving the recognition of coaching as a profession and through increased focus on health, participation and prevention of ethical issues in sport.

The Peak project will run from January 2019 to December 2021

DITEAM12 - DITEAM12 stands for Diverse and Inclusive Teams for Children Under 12.The project’s objectives are to raise awareness on the positive aspects of non-competitive sports for children under 12, create inclusive and diverse clubs and use inclusion and diversity in sport clubs as tools to prevent violence and intolerance. The project aims to achieve this in two ways:

• By providing an online pedagogical tools (Web Educational Tool) for coaches and club directors to allow them to focus on skills’ development and on self-improvement of children rather than on competition. In addition to this the DITEAM12 will create inclusive clubs in which children with different abilities can train together. This will make room for children with mental, sensorial or physical disability. By focusing on the good aspects of competition the best potential of each child will be reached.
• By creating a “school of parents” in the involved sports clubs in which workshops will be organized. This will allow parents to accept diversity in the team, understand the focus on the development of children through inclusion and tolerance rather than through competition and superiority.

The project runs from January 2020 to December 2021.

WIN-DOP - The project, WINDOP, Understanding and Promoting Whistleblowing on Doping Irregularities in the EU aims to promote the act of whistle-blowing on doping offences in competitive sports. WIN-DOP will help to understand the organisational and personal factors of whistle-blowing, such as, the extent to which European NADOs engage in good practices on whistle-blowing and the factors that influence whistle-blowing behaviours. Furthermore, WIN-DOP aims to promote whistle-blowing across European member states by developing pedagogical material to encourage whistle-blowing and providing policy guidelines for best practice on whistle-blowing in relation to doping.

The proposed project responds to the European Union’s priority area of reducing doping within sport. It also relates to the European Union’s and WADA’s priorities by increasing knowledge on whistle-blowing and inform EU policy. The project findings will be diffused to the academic community, sports and health professionals, and public stakeholders involved in the development of anti-doping policy and anti-doping prevention.

The WIN-DOP project runs from January 2020 to December 2022

SPIRIT - The main aim of the project, Sport and Psycho-social Initiative for Inclusive Training is to make sports clubs more accessible and welcoming to everyone, with refugees in focus, by developing a framework for humane, inclusive and empowering coaching that nurtures good mental health.

In order to reach this aim, the following key activities will be carried out:

• The collection, compilation and dissemination of relevant research and useful practical examples in the field of sport and mental health
• Developing and promoting recommendations for educating coaches that advance the mental wellbeing of their sports participants
• Creating and implementing a coaching framework that presents the academic case for sports and mental health in an accessible manner, and which utilises practical examples to guide the learner through an educational path
• Providing an accessible online learning tool that facilitates the skills development of coaches in a flexible way

The project runs from January 2020 until December 2022

PACTE - To conduct a Europe-wide representative survey of municipalities’ physical activity policies and practices, the project PACTE, which stands for Promoting Active Cities Through Europe, aims to:

• Identify the status of municipalities physical activity policies across Europe
• Investigate gaps in policy and practice
• Create a matrix for change for Active Cities which we would be based on:

An evidence-based rating and evaluation process, focusing on building the relationship between the established key success areas and targeted population engagement (how to access the most people in the most effective way).

• Tailored recommendations for continuous improvement for participating cities.
• To develop and deliver a communication campaign targeting municipalities in Europe.

The communication campaign will be accompanied by online resources with the objective:

• to support municipalities in the development of physical activity policies
• to support municipalities in the delivery of physical activity policies

The purpose of the project is to provide a blueprint for creating active cities, whatever their size and wherever in Europe they may be.

The project runs from January 2018 to December 2020.