EdMedia project gets up and running

EdMedia project gets up and running

An intense two-day meeting in Lithuania’s second-largest city Kaunas on February 26 and 27 proved very successful following a productive gathering of all the partners of the newly-launched EdMedia project.

Funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, EdMedia aims to proactively change the attitude towards an athletes’ dual career by deliberately shaping a positive image and encouraging sports organisations to pursue the implementation of the European Union’s guidelines on dual careers of athletes.

The action plan of the project includes conducting a comprehensive analysis of related scientific articles and examining how an athletes’ dual career image is formed by media, before analysing the gap between the current practices and the EU guidelines on dual career of athletes. The end goal is to then develop and implement an online educational programme for both athletes and sports organisations to use to qualitatively promote a more positive attitude towards athletes’ dual career, to strengthen dual career policies in Europe and to encourage stakeholders to contribute to the improvement of conditions for dual career athletes, from an individual, organisational and national level.

Meeting discussions

The project involves widespread representation from its eight partners spread across Europe, which include the project’s coordinators from the Lithuanian Sports University, European Athlete as Student (EAS) Network based in Malta, Italy’s University of Rome Foro Italico, Romania’s Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, the University of Valencia in Spain, German Sport University Cologne, Slovenia’s University of Ljubljana and the EUSA Institute.

After an entertaining Bingo ice-breaker to help all partners present at the meeting get to know each other, the project coordinators presented the handbook and each stage of implementation of the project, before discussions surrounding the project’s work packages were held, including proposals on how to review both scientific and media coverage of dual career, as well as analysing the guidelines on dual career set out by the EU and whether or not they are being implemented across the continent.



Discussions regarding the project’s dissemination and communication strategies were then held, as the afternoon was wrapped up with an overview of the day’s proceedings, before all those present were taken to a traditional Lithuanian restaurant where various forms of the local staple diet of potatoes was eaten.

The meeting’s second day included discussions over project management issues, budget allocation and a timeline of deadlines before the official conclusion, after which many participants were able to wander the streets and visit some of the iconic and beautiful buildings in old-town Kaunas. Apart from any video conference calls, the next gathering of all the project’s partners will take place in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

LSSA and EUSA

EUSA was represented at the meeting by its Communications & Projects Manager Mr Andrej Pisl and Communications Officer Mr Fabio De Dominicis. They also took the opportunity to meet with its member in Lithuania - Lithuanian Students Sports Association (LSSA), also based in Kaunas. Present at the meeting was the President Mr Ceslovas Garbaliauskas and Office member Ms Egle Zibinskaite, joined also by Ms Goda Mankute, member of the board.