Sport and Citizenship

EU Affairs Manager Maxime Leblanc portrays the strategies and activities of his organisation.  

ICSSPE: Maxime, please describe your organisation’s vision and mission?

Maxime: Sport and Citizenship is a European think tank, which has been committed since its creation in 2007 to the launch and the preservation of a European civic dialogue in the field of sport. Through transverse and multidisciplinary activities, Sport and Citizenship aims at fostering the use of sport as an innovative tool to deal with societal matters (health, education, social inclusion, integrity, etc.). The overarching goal of Sport and Citizenship is to advocate for the recognition of a certain specificity of sport at EU level. We argue that sport is a constitutive element of a European identity. Our work aims at feeding the EU and national institutions with ideas and recommendations in the field of sport, thanks to the support of five European networks and a 100-member Scientific Committee. Sport and Citizenship’s mission can be summarised as follows:

-          Foster debates and discussion

-          Promote contradictory points of view

-          Contribute to European public policies

ICSSPE: What is your specific function within the organisation?

Maxime: I hold the EU Affairs Manager position, meaning that I am responsible for creating, monitoring and following-up on all the projects with a European dimension in which our organisation takes part. I am also responsible for the relations with EU institutions and other European stakeholders in the field of sport.

ICSSPE: Which activities and projects are implemented in order to reach your goals and objectives?

Maxime: The five European thematic networks form the core of our think tank. Each is composed of experts (sport movement, institutions, NGO’s, civil society organisation, private sector, etc.) in various fields such as health, gender equality, volunteering, education, disabilities. They constitute the basis of the work in the way that they provide our think tank with tangible arguments and ideas we can promote vis-à-vis the EU institutions. Through gathering experts, producing a European publication and organising a conference to spread the message, Sport and Citizenship manages to maintain discussions on various topics and bring in new ideas. Sport and Citizenship takes part in EU-funded project with various partner across Europe. Also, the initiatives created by the private sector are important in the field of sport. In this regard, the Designed to Move initiative constitutes a strong case.

ICSSPE: What are the organisation’s target groups and who do you work together with?

Maxime: As I mentioned above we work closely with the European Union and also with key stakeholders in the field of sport in Europe. Therefore the target groups are mostly the European decision-makers in the field of sport, may it be representatives of the sport movement or the national and European institutions.

ICSSPE: Considering the current pressing issues in the sport sector (doping, match fixing, participation, access, good governance, sustainability, etc.), how relevant do you think it is to foster cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration amongst different stakeholders in order to solve these problems?

Maxime: Cross-sectoral cooperation is the key to developing the European dimension of sport. The abovementioned threats to sport are problems that have a wider impact on societal cohesion and community development. Exchanges of good practices between the world of sport and the “outside” world is paramount. In addition, global threats like match fixing or doping cannot be single-handedly dealt with by isolated actors. Putting efforts in common is important.

ICSSPE: Which benefits does your organisation gain from its ICSSPE membership and how does the ICSSPE network contribute to the achievement of your goals?    

Maxime: Thanks to ICSSPE’s expertise, Sport and Citizenship is able to build strong cases. The scientific investigations conducted by ICSSPE are very important in a sport world where data, statistics, methodology and measurement procedures are lacking.