It is one of the international projects in which the Special Education and Pedagogy Laboratory participated, funded by the Erasmus+ Sport program (now Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership Key Action 2 – KA2), which enables organizations to increase the quality and relevance of their activities, to develop and strengthen their partner networks, and to increase their capacity to work jointly transnationally.

Duration: 01.01.2021 – 30.06.2023

Coordinator:
Fundacion Universitaria San Antonio – UCAM (Spain)

Partner institutions:

1. University of Rome “Foro Italico” (Italy)
2. Collective Innovation AS (Norway)
3. European Paralympic Committee (Austria)
4. Fundacion Once para la Cooperacione Inclusion Social de Personas Con discapacidad (Spain)
5. Instituto Politecnico de Viseu (Portugal)
6. The European Athlete as Student (Malta)
7. Universitatea Nationala de Educatie Fizica si Sport din Bucarest (Romania)
8. University of Limerick (Ireland)

This project’s main goal was to strengthen the social inclusion of people with disabilities through sport and higher education. For this, the network worked on the extension and implementation of the Dual Career model for athletes with disabilities through the development of a strategic partnership at the European level between universities and other institutions.

The project is divided into the following 6 Outputs (O):

O1 and O2: State-of-the-art research activities aimed at identifying obstacles, needs, and barriers that student-athletes with disabilities encounter in their athletic and academic careers, based on degree of disability and personal background.
O3: Based on the information gathered, a best practice guide was created and an innovative curriculum for training experienced mentors was developed. This curriculum was supplemented with an open-access interactive online course.
O4: A pilot study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the course in terms of structure, content, and operation. The results of this experience were used to improve and adapt the initial proposal.
O5: Based on the information analyzed and the results of the project, a European handbook was produced to disseminate the results and make Dual Career for student-athletes with disabilities possible in other contexts.
O6: An Observatory on Dual Career, Disability and Sport was created with the aim of monitoring and evaluating the development of this issue over time.