Conciliation between study and competitive sporting activity

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Università di Bari, Università di Bergamo, Università di Trento, Università di Trieste, Università di Verona, Università del Salento, Università Mediterranea Reggio di Calabria, Università di Sassari.

Sport activities have always had a great fascination on large and increasingly diverse layers of the population, with particular emphasis on young people, thus including university students. Until now, however the Italian university system in its various forms has never planned to give acknowledgement to the elite students/athletes for results achieved in their sporting career, at a national and international level.

The same considerations can be made for other students who are athletes in various sports disciplines (since they are members of the respective Federations and regularly participate to the related federal activities). In fact, the results (participation in international events, records, medals) are what distinguish these latter from elite athletes. Both types are therefore students/athletes who practice sport activities that require a daily commitment difficult to harmonize with the current rules and that force them to choose exclusively one of the two "careers".

• To formalize two new student figures, elite agonists and non-elite agonists.
• To build for these students/athletes an ad hoc course of study that allows them to successfully attend their university studies, harmonizing them with their sporting path.
• To recognize these athletes their sporting commitment with university training credits.
• Defining the figure of student-elite athlete.

1. To identify students within universities who are already athletes, elite and non-elite athletes.
2. To understand to what extent athletes/students can combine their study path with competitive activity and therefore to recognize their needs.
3. To define a framework that summarizes how, in the current state of affairs, the different universities have addressed the issue.
4. To analyse the models present in other European and non-European countries.
5. To identify the "other" interlocutors who share the group's project besides Universities.