Research-Embedded Strategic Plan for Anti-Doping Education: Clean Sport Alliance Initiative for Tackling Doping

RESPECT stands for Research–Embedded Strategic Plan for Anti–Doping Education: Clean Sport Alliance Initiative for Tackling Doping (RESPECT). RESPECT emerged from growing recognition that athletes are appreciative of initiatives which genuinely give them voice but speaking out about doping can be a source of distress and create long-lasting negative impacts on athletes’ lives, perpetuating a code of silence regarding doping. To help counter this code of silence and promote the athlete voice, the RESPECT project engaged the anti–doping community through cooperative actions that bridge the gap between research, policy, and practice. RESPECT has bridged the gap by delivering all the promised intellectual outputs and multiplier events on budget and to an extremely high standard, despite the project being undertaken during a global pandemic. Specifically:- Developing the Clean Sport Alliance Knowledge Exchange Platform (IO6) to shift how the European anti-doping community learn and exchange knowledge to encourage dialogue with relevant European stakeholders to ensure the development of evidence-informed prevention programmes. The Clean Sport Alliance Knowledge Exchange Platform was informed by comprehensive reviews of the quantitative (WP2 - IO1) and qualitative (WP3 - IO2) social science research fields to inform anti-doping education programmes and broader clean sport interventions.- Delivering international forums and a series of films (WP4 - IO3), to give voice to the clean sport movement, and clean athletes, to ensure their experiences and complex decisions and trajectories are at the centre of anti–doping discourse and policymaking. - Co–creating the research agenda for doping prevention by drawing upon international expertise in the field of doping prevention research and practice through the established Delphi method (WP5 - IO4). - Devising a 10–year Research–Embedded Strategic Plan for Anti–Doping Education (Clean Sport Plan 2030) to feed decision making and policymaking in the area of doping prevention (WP5 - IO5). - Further enhancing the position of Europe as a leader in doping prevention and in the development of solutions that are relevant to the social economy of the Union. RESPECT successfully brought together the international clean sport community, social science researchers, athletes, and Government representatives to facilitate collective action and achieve global policy impacts via the WADA Social Science Research Strategy. This Strategy sets the framework for WADA’s social science research activity for the period 2020-2024.Leeds Beckett University led the RESPECT consortium comprising leading organisations in anti-doping including the Anti–Doping Authority of the Netherlands, Kingston University London, National Anti-Doping Agency of Germany, Slovenian Anti–Doping Organisation, Sport Ireland, UK Anti–Doping and the University of Birmingham. RESPECT objectives were achieved through the delivery of multiple work packages effectively led by partner organisations through an agreed work plan. The strength of the consortium laid in the reach and collective experience and capability of the project partners. Such qualities ensured the project design recognised the complexity of the research problem and utilised state–of–the–art mixed–methods research designs and dissemination approaches. RESPECT is the first of its kind in the field of doping prevention as we have started to build an understanding of the core values of the stakeholders of clean sport. The sustainability of the Clean Sport Alliance Knowledge Exchange Platform has been secured with following on funding from Erasmus+ for RESPECT-P to address the needs of all athletes and athlete-support personnel, including those from the para-sport movement.