Earlier this week, a delegation from Urhea, the National Olympic training center in Helsinki visited Slovenia, meeting several stakeholders on the topic of dual career and the importance of having an education system that supports sportspersons - athletes, as well as coaches and sports managers.

Representing Urhea, Dual Career Specialist Tuuli Merikoski and Human Resource Development Specialist Tuomas Rouvali first visited the office of the European University Sports Association (EUSA) and the EUSA Institute. They were met by Director of Education & Operations / Chief Operational Officer Sara Rozman and Director of Project & Policy Andrej Pisl.

Afterwards, they visited the Faculty of Sport at the University of Ljubljana where they met with prof. Mojca Doupona, also the Treasurer of the European Athlete as Student (EAS) - dual career network.

After attending a meeting of the Career Advancement, Resilience & Employability of Sport Coaches (CARE) project, they were also received at the Slovenian Olympic Committee, where they were met by Peter Dokl, Head of Athletes and Olympic Values Department.

At these occasions, the systems of supporting dual careers of sportspersons were discussed, with a focus on supporting them in their higher education paths. In Finland, they recently started Elite Athlete Friendly Universities programme, and in Slovenia the Athletes Friendly Education certification has been ongoing for several years already.

The participants were also acquainted with the Athletes' Friendly Education (AFE) project that ran between 2019 and 2021 in which EUSA Institute also partnered in. The project gathered partners from Belgium, Croatia, Germany, North Macedonia, Portugal and Slovenia. During the project, several resources were developed, with the two key ones being the Athletes Friendly Education Handbook - certification award for educational institutions supporting the dual career of athletes; and the Athletes Friendly Education as a scientific publication. The AFE project was co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. Results and resources are available via the Erasmus+ project card ATHLETES FRIENDLY EDUCATION.