Sport and Social Cohesion Lab

Background Sport, and sport programmes, are increasingly recognised as a vehicle to support social cohesion in Europe and beyond. However, the potential of sport to support social cohesion is limited by a number of issues around the understanding, delivery and evaluation of programmes. In particular, programmes are often critiqued for not taking into account local perspectives, and sometimes rather imposing their values directly onto communities. Objectives Participatory programme approaches are seen as a remedy to some of the concerns around the way current programming is delivered. As such, the Sport and Social Cohesion Lab (SSCL) worked to implement a Living Lab approach across five unique sport settings in four different countries. Through this, the project aimed to generate a deeper understanding of local meanings of social cohesion, and create tools to support practitioners around Europe in implementing their own participatory approaches. Implementation To achieve these goals, the Living Labs relied on local pairings between NGOs and Universities in four countries, representing five highly diverse European cities. Complementing these pairings, the project adopted a logical progression of outputs and activities that directly helped contribute to these goals. In particular, outputs were generated to map European understandings of social cohesion in sport, as well as to provide guidance on the Living Lab approach to other sport-based actors. Achievements The project directly reached over 1500 beneficiaries through the regular Living Lab activities. In addition, awareness on sport, social cohesion and the Living Lab approach was raised amongst numerous crucial stakeholder groups, including policymakers, practitioners and academics. And, within the consortium, systems for participatory programme designs were established and are likely to continue after the programme, thus generating sustainable change in how programmes are set up.