European Athlete as Student (EAS) - the Dual Career Network organised its 13th Conference entitled “Enhancing European Partnerships in Sports and Education”, together with is General Assembly in Rovaniemi, Finland between September 15-17, 2016.

The Opening was done by Mr Niko Niemisalo, project manager and partner of the Organising Committee, Mr Outi Hyry-Honka, Director of School of Social Services, Health and Sport, Mrs Kaarina Maatta, University of Lapland, Faculty of Education and Mrs Laura Capranica, President of EAS.



In her speech, EAS President Mrs Capranica focused on the successful activities in the past year and mentioned that the summer 2016 has been special for EAS, as it established the legal seat of the organisation in Malta.



Conference themes touched the special challenges of athletes. Despite the fact that for more than a decade dual career has been an issue at European level, many aspects are still lacking or need to be implemented in all the Member States.



Mrs Agata Dziarnowska from the Sport unit of the European Commission highlighted the European dimension of sports, describing also the future EU activities and opportunities in sports. Event participants had the possibility to listen to the presentations of five EU-funded projects on dual career.



The programme also included a sports intervention featuring students of Lapland University of Applied Sciences. The sports interventions were successful and all the guests found them as nice and refreshing activities in between the conference sessions.



Participants were introduced the Olympic Training Center in Santasport and Lapland Sports Academy. The audience was convinced that the training and education facilities are relevant and top-quality in Rovaniemi and that the training center that we have is in top-quality in all aspects.

In 2017, the EAS General Assembly and Conference will be held in September in Aarhus, Denmark.

For more information, please see www.dualcareer.eu.