Today, many universities educate people to positions, which do not exist anymore as the labor market has changed so fast that neither the educational policy nor the contents of education have been able to adapt to those rapid changes. The purpose of the project, designed as a transnational EU project, is to create a shared background for developing Sport Management study programmes in Europe with individual focus on the national characteristics. This reflects the basic idea of the EU collaboration - to create a shared background for further national Sport Management study programmes. This project addresses the issue of improving relevance of Sport Management education in 9 countries (Denmark, Finland, Czech Republic, Norway, Germany, France, Spain, Greece and Lithuania) across Europe to improve the match between obtained skills through sports education and demand in the labor market. The aim of this project is to achieve better match between sport education institutions and enterprises employing graduates of sport education through exchange of innovative practices as well a 3 rounds of data collection in 9 countries to develop a New Age Sport Management Education Curriculum. To achieve the aim of the project the 3 main objectives are: • To develop and adapt a labor market driven New Sports Management curriculum that is designed to improve the match between sport education institutions and demand in labor market. • To include approx. 68 sport business professionals in the development process of the New sport curriculum to educate graduates needed in labor market •Adaption of innovative practices such as combination of “Sport Business Intelligence” & “Performance-Importance Matrix (PIME)” or effective curriculum development and best practices between European universities to ensure that future programmes are evidence-based and research-led, are cognisant of current and future skills development needs, and are valued by employers and academics. During this project, the Performance-Importance Matrix (PIM), a method of quality improvements helping to foresee the future by combining data of existing competences and the competences required in the future, will be used for curriculum development for the first time ever. The first trial to foresee the market demand of sport management education was AEHESIS-project (Aligning a European Higher Education Structure in Sport Science) in 2003-2007. Therefore, this project is based on the previous successful experiences the AEHESIS project, and an effective international network of sport management specialists, which was established during the previous project and has now been upgraded with the specialists from Denmark, Spain and the Czech Republic. 3 different types of quantitative and qualitative data will be collected through online questionnaires and qualitative interviews from the professionals in the sport management field. The data will be collected from all the participating countries from all the 4 fields of sport management national sport organizations, sport clubs and federations, the representatives of the governing bodies in the different countries, sport private enterprises. Collecting the data in 9 European countries (Eastern, Northern, Southern and Western perspective) from sport clubs, sport federations, cities and fitness clubs will identify the: a) The existing core, interpersonal, systemic and special skills and competences, b) The skills and competences that need to be developed in the near future to meet the new requirements of the sport management labor market, c) The core skills and competences of the field for the years 2020 and 2025 d) The skills and competences, which will not necessarily be required in the near future As the partners come from all parts of Europe, they offer different educational approaches, sports traditions and also a large variety in the educational profiles, which is essential for this project, while we want to identify the core values and the differences in the educational system in Sport Management. This diversity will give the project better possibility to make a more qualified market demand analyse and broader applicable best practice to develop a New Sport Management Curriculum adaptable in the EU level. Accordingly, key outputs will be market demand analyse and a best practice in the sport management area that will be applied to develop A New Sport Education Curriculum specific to the identified sport sector-skills gaps in 9 different countries.
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