Showcase of university sports education, research and innovation projects Marketing & Sponsorship

Politecnico di Torino, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Università di Siena, Università di Trento, Università della Valle d’Aosta, Università di Pisa, Università per stranieri di Siena.

The activities of group 5 refer to the theme Third mission of the University system, a challenge that today universities are called to face with a certain urgency. In such a perspective, research, teaching and continuous training and intervention can and must be thought of more and more intertwined with each other and with the network of stakeholders that belong to or refer to the world of sport.

Producing knowledge, training and good intervention for the understanding and effective management of issues of social and organizational relevance with reference to the worlds of sport is the aim to strive for. There are many research, training and intervention initiatives that now characterize the intertwining of the university world and the sport sector, but often these activities are not valued as they deserve and rarely manage to generate critical mass towards institutional interlocutors.

The reasons for this lack of strength are manifold, but certainly in part it is due to the fact that there is not yet a solid network that connects all these actions between them that can generate forms of dialogue both inside the university world and outside it with both traditional and potential stakeholders.

Starting from this premise, our working group proposes 3 core activities.

1. The first nucleus of activities aims to carry out an analysis and mapping of the existing activities related to the three levels (research; teaching / training; third party initiatives) and transversally of the ways in which the outcomes are communicated. The existing proposals could therefore be identified:
   • research (themes; purpose; financiers, partners)
   • teaching / training (degree course; teaching; third level training - proposal format - improvements, masters, high-level training courses - skills developed and systems used for evaluating educational outcomes)
   • third-party projects (areas; purpose; client; partner)
   • how to communicate the results inside and outside

   This would allow us to have a clearer picture that enables us: to enhance the existing activities in systemic terms and to communicate it in a clearer and more organic way (not only the initiatives of large universities but also those more linked to general universities, to smaller ones, and university start-ups, which are struggling most to show themselves within our national context); to better understand who the stakeholders already involved and interested in the topic are, both for the purpose of enhancing them for future collaborations, to create solid networks for requests for national and international financing; to highlight good practices that can serve each other or hypothesize new common practices between universities and universities and the institutional world.

2. A second nucleus of activities aims to enhance the existing but often submerged social capital that works in the sports sector, starting from former students of the universities involved who have occupied, during their career paths, positions within the world of the sport up to the leading figures, executives, opinion leaders etc. who work in this area or finance it also motivated by their passion and sensitivity towards sport (Hypothesis involving Alumni networks).
3. Finally, a third and last group of activities is developing public communication actions of a wide range of all the initiatives and networks that will be generated to highlight the contribution that research and training in sports can play for society.