Sport research infrastructure (2015)

The Dutch ministry of Public Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) has asked the Mulier Institute to do an exploratory research into the sport research infrastructure in European countries. In this paper the aim is to shed light on the research infrastructure in five European countries (the Netherlands, Belgium (Flanders), Denmark, England and Germany), focussing on three themes: topics, organizations and funding. In the report the authors focus especially on innovation. They used two methods. First, they contacted several country experts. Furthermore, they studied several documents that the experts sent them. Neither of the countries they mapped had a clear and transparent picture of the sport research infrastructure in their respective countries. The EU does not have such an overview either. This report can therefore be seen as a first attempt to describe the European sport research infrastructure, identifying the main themes, organisations, funding, innovation, best practices and (some of the) leading experts. In all five countries the experts they have spoken can enumerate the main themes and main organizations, but the way sport research is funded shows much variation. The Netherlands and Belgium are the only two countries with an overarching national (scientific) program with significant budgets for sport research. Furthermore, it looks like there is little cooperation between research organizations, the Netherlands being an exception.