Dual-Track Careers for Para-Athletes (PARAdig)

Erasmus+ Sport Collaborative Partnerships

Project title: Dual-Track Careers for Para-Athletes (PARAdig)

Project duration: 01/01/2020 – 31/12/2021

It has for many years been a challenge for athletes in EU member states to combine their sports training, events and competitions with their need to receive an adequate education with a view to developing a sports career-end strategy for their subsequent employment, something informed by the EU Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes. With the greater focus on inclusion of people with a disability to also take up sportsand the improvements to accesibility and the design of sports facilities, there are ever greater numbers of people with disabilities taking up sports. These athletes face the same problem of timetabling their dual pursuits, but they often have several additional obstacles to deal with, such as dependency on specialized means of transport, and the extra time needed for every change of activity for a para-athlete.

“Dual-Track Careers for Para-Athletes” carries on from where the EU guidelines on Dual careers for Athletes leaves off in 2013 – pointing up the many problems faced by athletes with a disability, the urge and mandate to be inclusive notwtihstanding. The partnership will conduct important grass-root research of the ecosystem around the athlete with a disability, to find ways to get the system working more optimally, seeking ways to support families in the long term, and reporting in detail on findings. The research will produce another output – the Handbook of Best Practices for professionals all over the EU. Finally, a dedicated Virtual Learning Platform to orient the athlete transitioning to the workplace will be created to teach him/her all the basics of the Business and Entrepreneurship world.

The impacts we seek through implementation of this action are to help talented and elite athletes with disability to be placed in the direct spotlight of enquiry, and to examine the interactions of thos agencies and institutions around them who are in a position to assist them to attain their goals.