Partnership - France

University of Lille

The University of Lille (ULille) has a solid experience in sports management and international programmes. The School of Sports Sciences of the University of Lille benefits from a large network of more than 1000 alumni and a network of professionals who carry out regular interventions in the training programme. This School hosts a unique international Master’s Degree in sports management in France as well as an Erasmus Mundus in the field of Sports Governance. Those programmes allowed the School and thus the University to grow its network of professionals and students that will be directly partnered up in the SEMASC project ensuring not only first-hand expertise but also connections within the field that will be used to spread the questionnaire and participate in the project.

ULille will lead the WP1 Management by ensuring the daily management and swift communication between partners, as well as sound financial management throughout the project activities.

Institut français du Monde associatif

The Institut français du Monde associatif (IFMA) was created in January 2019 in order to promote knowledge of associations. It has been designed as an intermediation hub to match the non-profit and voluntary sectors’ needs with research and its mission revolves around the collaboration between social sciences research and associations. In 4 years of existence, it has mapped over 1000 researchers, laboratories and organisations working on matters connected to knowledge of associations. It has funded 32 new research projects on the associations sector which were selected amongst the 140 applications to its 4 calls for proposals. It has also started to identify and list the whole of literature on associations. The Institute is very keen on connecting French research on associations to international research. Not only has it funded several research projects that are either comparative studies, or carried out by international researchers, but it is also currently organised a working group on the European associations sector. It is also involved in an international consortium called REIUNIS, financed by the University Agency of Francophonie, which aims at organising a summer university of participatory research. Lastly, the Institut has organised a working group with 40 French researchers and practitioners concerning the knowledge needs on associations, socio economic models and also on value creation and evaluation issues. IFMA will transfer in the project the conclusion of their working group on the knowledge needs of associations and their partners about socio economic models and evaluation issues. They will especially bring their expertise in the data collection phase (questionnaire related to the socioeconomic model of amateur sport clubs) and in the implementation of the training session for practitioners and of the pedagogical toolkit.

IFMA will co-lead the WP3 Training materials with UBP.

European Association of Sport Employers

EASE is a not for profit and independent membership organisation. It is the only representative organisation for sport employers in Europe. It seeks to increase the representativeness of sport employers and to influence labour relations in sport at European level. EASE is today representing 8 national sport employers’ associations based in 7 different countries: France, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Ireland and Finland. EASE aims to promote social dialogue and industrial relations by leading European projects, thereby contributing to the development of the sport sector and the representation of sport employers. EASE will be able to bring its expertise to the project as it has experience in European projects implementation. Therefore, EASE will be a valuable partner by involving its network for the dissemination of the documents, tools, surveys produced under the SEMASC project. EASE members are deeply rooted in their national sport movement and their participation will help the efficiency and the impact of the project at European level: they will help develop the training materials and use its network to disseminate the surveys in their involved countries and to national and local sport clubs, which will help reach a wide audience all over Europe. This will guarantee that the project has a more accurate description of the European sport associations and a better dissemination regarding the different documents produced throughout the project.

EASE will co-lead the WP2 Database and will participate in the dissemination of all the project outcomes in Europe.