The gorgeous city of Lisbon hosted the 4th meeting of the European Commission Expert Group “Skills and Human Resources Development in Sport” (XG HR), which took place on 15–16 May 2019.
A long-time observer in the Group, ENSE had both its President, Dr. Karen Petry, and Executive Director, Louis Moustakas, in attendance.
At the meeting, the Commission and fellow observer organisations presented updates and findings from various actions, projects and research.
Most notably, during the session on the Education of Coaches, Sergio Lara-Bercial from the International Council for Coaching Excellence and Louis Moustakas presented their ongoing research into the status of sport coaching around Europe as part of the PEAK and CoachForce21 projects, both of which feature extensive involvement from ENSE members.
Elsewhere, the head of the Sport Unit, Yves Le Lostecque, gave an update on the European Commission's activities. Namely, he indicated that the 2019 Erasmus+ Sport Call for Projects received a total of 743 applications and that final results will be revealed in the fall. The Erasmus+ 2020 call for projects will also be launched around the same time, with 65 million Euros made available for sport projects.
Numerous other speakers also presented their activities. During the session on Qualifications in Sport, Cliff Collins from EuropeActive delved into the work of the Active Leisure has been doing to improve the professional qualifications in the sector, namely through the Blueprint project of which ENSE is a part of.
Antonia Hagemann of Supporters Direct Europe, Jana Havrdová from the Czech Chamber of Fitness, as well as Simone Digennaro and Ben Gittus from the European Observatoire of Sport and Employment (EOSE) also presented at the event.
The 4th meeting of the current Expert Group, ENSE was also on-site for the previous meetings in February 2018 in Bath, UK, in July 2018 in Split, Croatia, and in November 2018 in Salzburg, Austria.
The final meeting of the Expert Group is planned to take place during the final months of 2019 at a location to be announced.