“Te(a)chIn Sport” project envisages the use of latest sports technology (Intelligent feedback devices/IFD/) together with promotion of EU traditional values and principles in sports as main instruments in developing the Universities sports activities. Armed with a better sense of the student journey the Universities and NGOs will design the new “development strand” to support the students’ and young people transition through higher education to their healthy and successful future life.

The European Union has increasingly emphasized the sociological, physiological and psychological benefits of sport. Sport provision and participation trends have been measured throughout the member-states and, the gaps between Western and Eastern countries are widely acknowledged. These gaps are especially wide between young-adults people. However, the University sport is not a well investigated issue by the Commission and even in the White paper of sports it is slightly highlighted. The preliminary research we have made shows that the integration of sports into the education curriculum in most European pedagogic systems has resulted in high levels of sport practice among the youth. However, as young people enter higher education, memberstates face a problem with a natural withdrawal in participation. The universities policy makers and student sports federations can play an important role in reversing this phenomenon. The “Te(a)chIn Sport” project will contribute to the EU actions in further analysing the University sports systems and improving them in favour of students’ and young people’s overall life. Volunteers will take part in all project phases.

Te(a)chIn Sport Specific Objectives in line with the EU policies in this context are to:

• Motivate University students and staff for more physical activities by using state of the art innovative technologies.
• Develop the sports inventory and leisure facilities of the partners’ organizations by using latest technologies in sports for fun and training for better results.
• Develop partnerships within universities to create virtual Sports Hub on the project created platform, to advice and prescribe physical activity thus promoting sport participation in sedentary groups of young people and university students.
• Develop attractive events and activities to be held in the Universities’ participating countries thus creating habits of regular physical activity of students;
• Foster cooperation with third countries, in particular potential candidates to the EU, thus answering to a special need, recognized in the EU Work plan for Sport 2014 – 2017 (explained below).
• Reach consensus on a new successful model for routine curriculum for students in EU Universities to be offered to institutions for the next educational period and thus answering the need for taking sport into account when formulating, implementing and evaluating policies and actions in other policy fields from the EU Work plan for sport.
• Create favorable conditions for the development of voluntary activities in sport through exchange of good practices in the use of highest technological achievements of the sport science research, development and application in sport education and grassroots sport initiatives in Universities and sharing them with volunteers.
• Promote a positive image of sports volunteers and of voluntary activities in sport.
• Encourage cooperation between government authorities and sports organizations at local, national and European level, in order to establish networks for solving common problems that voluntary activities face.
• Harness the potential of project volunteers in long-term activities at all sporting levels in the Partner’s organizations; By setting these strategic and specific objectives the project is addressing issues of utmost importance from the European policies in the field of sport, as follows:

In the European Union Work plan for Sport (2014-2017) the members of the EU Council and of the representatives of EU Member states governments agree that key topics, to which should be given priority by Member States and the Commission in the given period are “Sport and Society, in particular HEPA, volunteering, employment in sport as well as education and training in sport”. By using state of the art innovative technologies the project will contribute directly to such development. “Voluntary activities in sport can contribute to achieving the overall objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy by increasing mobility and through activities enhancing employability, improving public health, promoting social inclusion, education and active aging” underlines the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on “Developing the European dimension in sport” – we will stress and motivate volunteers by creating favorable conditions for the development of voluntary activities in sport through exchange of good practices in the use Te(a)chIn Sport Page 7 of 40 of highest technological achievements and by promoting a positive image of sports volunteers – not only in EU Member countries, but also in candidate members.

The Commission’s White Paper “A Strategy for Europe on Nutrition, Overweight and Obesity related health issues”1 underlines the importance of taking pro-active steps to reverse the decline in physical activity, and actions suggested in the area of physical activity will complement the ones, suggested in the White Paper on Sport. Our contribution to fulfilment of this aim will be the development of attractive events and activities to be held in the Universities’ participating countries thus creating habits of regular physical activity of students and fostering partnerships within universities in creating virtual Sports Hub on the project created platform; The EU Guidelines follow up on the White Paper on Sport by proposing more concrete and policy-related “Guidelines for Action”. Guidelines are intended to address decision-makers at all levels (European, national, regional, local), in the public as well as in the private sector. Our project will translate objectives into action by providing activities and events attractive to everyone, and encourage contacts between people from different social groups and with different capabilities, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, age, gender, nationality, and physical and mental health OR cooperate with universities and higher vocational schools to develop training programs for coaches, instructors and other sport professionals aimed to advise and prescribe physical activity for sedentary individuals.

The imperative for taking action to increase physical activity is clear. No EU country has a prevalence of overweight and obesity below 50%, and childhood obesity is a major concern throughout the region. A strong mandate to take action on NCDs, and, specifically, on physical activity and nutrition, exists at both global and regional levels, through the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control on Non communicable Diseases and, for Europe, through the Vienna Declaration on Nutrition and Non communicable Diseases in the Context of Health 2020. This combination of strong mandates from both WHO and the EU creates a really powerful push for action.

The need for the EU to work closely with the sport movement and relevant competent organizations at national, European and international levels such as the Council of Europe and WADA, in particular through the structured dialogue will be discussed at our special international workshop and priority will be given to elaborating skills amongst researchers and University sports experts for contributing at local, national and European level to the development of HEPA policies.

The best practice exchanges during the international workshops give wide access of volunteers to new trends in University sports – like routine sports activities controlled by intelligent feedback devices, virtual competition and development of new games. Special workshops in each country will be performed to educate and train project volunteers in understanding the new technological methods to be used in project as well as to acquire new skills necessary for the project activities implementation.

Te(a)chIn Sport is developed on the basis of genuine and adequate needs analysis held in the Project participating countries. In Bulgaria, where the Leading Partner is acting and where the idea of this project came from, there are severe challenges – not only for the University sport, but also for the sport education and motivation. As deepest and main challenges in Bulgaria could be considered:

• Non effective functioning of the physical culture education based on the insufficient sport infrastructure, whose condition is critical.
• A downward trend in the quality of sport teaching;
• Lowering the social status of sport teachers in the education system;
• Enduring dwindling weekly physical activity of students;
• Downward trends of health condition and reduced indicators of physical condition of young people and especially University students and staff. Besides answering the needs already mentioned when explaining the objectives, the project addresses issues relevant to the participating organisations and target groups as follows:
• Absence of European networks able to spread the good experiences of Sport at EU level and beyond – through this project where partners from 1 EU candidate countries (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) are included best practices will be exchanged and ready for implementation.
• Lack of awareness of proactive and virtuous connections between new technologies and sports activities
• Absence of research at European level of data about health gathered via wearable devices.
• Under – evaluation of the role of Sport in Health – there is a need in all project partner countries for taking sport into account when formulating, implementing and evaluating policies and actions in other policy fields, with particular attention to ensuring early and effective inclusion in the policy development process. Many Universities are not aligned with a model of sport training activities in their programs, they have no instruments to fight bad habits and sedentary, and leave their students alone struggling with health problems. For this reason we are going to create a brand new model to train University students, and doing this we are using cutting edge technology and user-friendly application. We will be able to give constancy to the activity of newcomers and enhance the action of sport students.
• Thanks to the use of Intelligent Feedback Device (IFD) we can really give a boost to Sport activity in University, widening with sensible percentage the engagement of sedentary students. The new model of sport training activities will last for long time because provide the Universities with a tool never used before, totally marketable and easy to spread via social networks. The specific needs for our consortium of partners to realise this project concern the following:
• Need to study the actual level of physical activity of students and teachers in the Universities taking part into the project. We must never forget how many people misbehave regarding their own health, their everyday habit and how this lead to a growing percentage of obesity and other malfunctions. This will help to answer the need recognised in the EU work plan for sport 2014-2017 and in the White Paper on Sport on the creation of sound knowledge base with quality and comparability of data – this base is needed to be improved to allow for better strategic planning and policy-making in the area of sport in all partner countries. All results of the studies and experiments during project will be shared among project participants.
• Need to exchange good practices between the project participating countries due to different level of innovations developed and levels of adequate HEPA development policies – that is why the project is including “old” EU members (Austria), relatively new (Hungary and Estonia), new (Bulgaria), candidate countries (Macedonia) and Iceland.
• Need to create awareness of using technologies in sports activities – they can help to motivate students and tutors for sports. At the universities the lack of sport is related to stressful university schedule, but therefore the lack of solutions cannot be ignored and the sedentary issues will be tackled by this project with a systemic approach. We know that sedentary starting in young years and protracting in university years can be a major cause of diabetes type C. The lack of models and sport programs at universities thus needs to be taken very seriously. If it is true that technical development is a major cause of sedentary, then our project will use technical development to make more people physically active. We would like to highlight how our objective to reach a larger number of students exactly fits the growing trust young students have towards technology. The corner stone of our application is the immediate feedback which enhances the user’s motivation to train make acquaintance with sport activities.
• Need to get funding – public funding in the partner countries is now directed to various other topics, such as the current refugee crisis, demographic and social issues or other country-specific challenges (urban infrastructure, fight against corruption, recovery from economic and financial crisis). There is not enough public funding for developing sport policies and investing in sport activities. One of the international seminars on best practice exchange will be on fund raising for sport.
• Need to include the local, national and European stakeholders and decision makers in a dialogue on the economic dimension of sport, in particular sustainable financing of sport, the legacy of major sport events, economic benefits of sport and innovation. This will be supported by a special international seminar on working with governments and decision makers on all levels. The project actions are expected to result in the development, transfer and/or implementation of innovative practices not only at European and national, but also regional and local levels, and to contribute to the development of a European dimension of sport. The elaborated innovative model of physical activity suitable for non-practicing sports students will be suggested to be taken into consideration by stakeholders in sports as a basis for sports education programs for the next years to 2020.